What is the First Amendment Award?

OBJECTIVE: To showcase a news employee’s increased efforts to be accurate and reliable through innovation, creativity, and hard work.

CRITERIA: To be nominated, the employee must be nominated (or nominate themselves) for going above and beyond the call of duty. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Reporters enterprising stories with a different and unexpected angle, digging deeper for information on a story no one else has, and using video as a separate element to a story (no wallpaper video).
  
  
• Producers adding unexpected elements to the newscast, including new camera shots, changing up story formats, and creating “TV Magic” moments to highlight their anchor(s).
  
  
• Photographers contributing to the story-telling process through innovative video and camera shots, investigating calls on the scanner (before being asked to by assignment desk/producer), enterprising story ideas, and thinking of creative live shots/stand-ups to take reporter stories to the next level.
  
  
• Assignment editor going above and beyond to help research stories, set up interviews, and troubleshoot problems that arise in the field.
  
  
• Anchors rewriting old leads and copy in scripts, digging for new information on stories to include in later newscasts, enterprising new and interesting stories for themselves or other members of the news team, and helping their producers find new ways to present the information during the newscast.
  
  
• Sports anchor/reporter doing more than the traditional sportscast---including enterprising sports feature and human interest stories.
  
  

These, of course, are just bare bones examples of you can be nominated for. Innovation and creativity are what will be rewarded.