You can win an Emmy Award in the 2009 Suncoast Emmy Awards. Just enter your best work. The deadline for entries is just around the corner — 5 pm, Friday, July 10.

If you work on the creative side of our business, you may want to keep your job, or get a new job, or land a new client. You need to be known for the excellence of your work. Win an Emmy, the symbol of excellence. Win more than one and attach more excellence to your name.

To win it, you’ve got to be in it. Get your best work together and enter now. Check out the rules and the opportunities in the 2009 Suncoast Emmy Awards at www.suncoastchapter.org.

Caroline Moses, Suncoast Chapter member and Louisiana Capitol Correspondent for WAFB-TV, Baton Rouge won the June membership benefit of a $200.00 gift card to the Olive Garden Restaurant. Congratulations Caroline! Next month our membership benefit will be $200.00 in CASH to help with your Emmy Award expenses. If you are a NATAS Suncoast member, send an e-mail to emmysuncst@aol.com that says, “Let me see the money!”. Send your e-mail so that it is received by the close of business on Friday, July 17. The winner’s name will be announced in the July issue of TUBE TALK.

Five South Florida college students who hope to become professional broadcasters will receive scholarship assistance from the Suncoast Chapter in the coming school year. The students are Nadia Aguilera, Miami Dade College and Dylan Brooks, Benjamin Cathey, Cassie Glenn and Martha Gabriela Loria of the School of Communications at the University of Miami.

Nadia Aguilera		Dylan Brooks		Benjamin Cathey

Cassie Glen		Martha Gabriela Loria

The 2009 Suncoast Scholarships were funded by the Suncoast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences along with the generous support of WSVN,TV/7 in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale. The scholarship recipients were selected by the Suncoast Scholarship Committee, Mary Ross Agosta, Communications Director, Archdiocese of Miami, Steve Greenberg, Producer, Reporter and Author and Angela Gonzalez Ramos, Programming & Public Affairs Director, WLTV Univision 23 in Miami who also is Chairman of the Scholarship Committee.

WTSP-TV, St. Petersburg News videographer John Deal was
prepared for a light news day—covering children with perfect conduct at Northwest Elementary School. But something about the crashed red truck off the Veterans Expressway made him stop his 10 Connects live truck about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. Along with a Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputy, Deal walked to the passenger side of the truck, knocked on the tinted window and opened the door. Brett Hawkins of Spring Hill was crunched beneath the dashboard, his head near the armrest, thick smoke rushing from the engine. Flames were beginning to grow.

“We’ve got to do something quick!” Deal, 44, said.

Then he heard a “blood-curdling scream”—the kind reserved for burning flesh. Deal let loose with a fire extinguisher on Hawkins’ legs as he began to wiggle his way over the console and out the door. He fell to the ground, Deal said, as flames rose nearly 30 feet. Hawkins’ skin hung in folds like a bunched-up sock—but he was alive.

“If being a hero means being scared, I was Superman,” Deal said. “I wasn’t really scared of the fire or anything. I just didn’t want this guy to die.”

Hawkins was in critical condition at Tampa General Hospital.

Deal soon became a news subject instead of a news observer, being interviewed by his station’s anchors.

Deal rejects any hero title. As a military brat and journalist who has covered hurricanes and the war in Afghanistan, the reality of death is nothing new.

CBS4 was the first South Florida television station to incorporate realtime radar that allowed CBS4 forecasters to describe weather conditions as they occur, without the traditional 15 minute delays that hamper most radar readings.

• Zoom Radar
  Created and developed by CBS4 Meteorologist Jeff Berardelli, the zoom radar displays the weather conditions of a particular area via weather cam. It’s been described by those in the industry as the most comprehensive interactive radar on the web.
• 3D Radar
  This radar offers an exclusive 3D look inside a storm. Quality radar volume displays are delivered in real time.
  
• The Weather Bug Network
  With the benefit of exclusive camera locations and a vast information weather network, the weather team can pinpoint exact weather conditions at dozens of locales around South Florida. The Weather Bug Network also allows CBS4 to report on rainfall amounts and wind gusts. In fact, the National Weather Service often contacts the CBS4 Storm Center for Weather Bug reports in order to get the most accurate readings.
• Live Storm Chase Technology
  With this technology, viewers are able to watch storms as they develop.

CBS4 has the largest team of meteorologists and weathercasters in the market, with six weathercasters devoted to bringing South Florida the area’s most comprehensive forecasts: David Bernard, Lissette Gonzalez, Craig Setzer, Christina Loren, and Jeff Berardelli.

CBS4 also recently announced the Phoenix Project, a “Life Makeover” initiative to help one South Florida resident get a new lease on life with the help of CBS4 and local businesses. More information and applications are available at www.cbs4.com.

A Jacksonville broadcasting legend has passed away.

Harold Baker, the man who put Channel 12 on the air more than 50 years ago, died in Tampa earlier this week.

Baker was the news director and anchor from the time WFGA, as it was known then, signed on in 1957 until leaving in 1978 to broadcast the Legislature to PBS stations.

Herb Gold, who Baker hired as station photographer a month before the station signed on the air, says Baker was “a good news man” from the old school, having come up in journalism through newspapers and radio while working for the Associated Press.

“He was part of the cadre of (Chet) Huntley, (David) Brinkley, (Walter) Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow,” adds Gold, referring to the pioneers of television news.

His tenure as news director was notable for the station’s involvement in the early Cape Canaveral rocket launches and our local coverage of the Vietnam War from Vietnam, not a small feat in those days.

Baker was nationally known in broadcasting circles as well, having served as president of the Radio and Television News Directors Association in 1956.

A Navy veteran, Baker lived in Ponte Vedra until just a few years ago, when he moved to the Tampa area.

Gold says Baker was a great researcher and loved writing about the history of Jacksonville.

“It was an honor to work for him and know him,” concludes Gold.

The man Baker hired to replace him as news director in 1978 also remembers him as a wonderful man.

“Harold Baker was an extremely distinguished man; by all means he was distinguished,” says Howard Kelley. “But beyond that, he was a man of great personal integrity and journalistic integrity.”

Kelley calls Baker the “first face” of the station, and says he was among the first in television to issue editorials in an era when only newspapers did so.

He had a good sense of balance, says Kelley, and could argue both sides of a controversial topic with conviction, so viewers could decide how they felt.

One of the editorial topics Baker argued successfully was the lack of a city rescue service. In those days, private ambulance companies transported patients, and the standard of care was not uniform. Kelley says thanks to Baker’s editorials on the subject, the city now has a rescue department with its fire department.

Kelley remembers Baker as the man in the office with the coat always buttoned and a tight knot in his tie.

But despite his buttoned up appearance, his personality was anything but.

“He had a good sense of humor, and he loved his college football team,” which was the Oklahoma Sooners.

“He was the man that trained me and hired me, and I have a lot to be thankful for with Harold Baker,” Kelley sums up.

Submit your best broadcast news reporting by July 1 to Columbia Journalism School’s Alfred I. duPont Awards. Programs must have aired for the first time in the United States between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009. Entries must be received by July 1. Details and entry instructions at http://www.journalism.columbia.edu.

SHANNON BREAM Supreme Court correspondent, Fox News from reporter, WFTS-TV, Tampa.

JENNIFER HALE returns to Louisiana as a reporter for WVUE-TV in New Orleans.

SHANNON HIGH, Vice President and Managing Editor at MSNBC, adds the duties of Executive Producer of the “Dylan Ratigan” and the “Dr. Nancy Snyderman” shows. Shannon will continue to develop other daytime programming for MSNBC. Shannon is a graduate of the School of Communication at the University of Miami and a former News Director at WFOR-TV/CBS4 in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale.

FRANCESCA MAXIME to co-host a brand new TV show called “Currents” for NET in NYC run by the Diocese of Brooklyn and airing in NYC on Time Warner. She previously anchored the nightly newscast at WEAR-TV ABC 3 in Pensacola, Florida.

CHECK OUT THE ACADEMY’S FREE, NATIONWIDE JOB BANK, WITH OVER 1,000 HELP WANTED LISTINGS, AT
www.suncoastchapter.org. CLICK ON JOB BANK.

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Suncoast Chapter

Officers

Dave Game, President, Executive Producer for Digital Media/CBS Stations South Florida
Chip Richards, 1st Vice President, Production Manager, WLRN-TV, PBS, Miami
Craig Stevens, 2nd Vice President, News Anchor, WSVN-TV, Miami
Victor Montilla, Vice President Puerto Rico, President, More Than Media, San Juan
Karla MacDonald, Acting Secretary, Suncoast Chapter Administrator
Betsy Behrens, Treasurer and Trustee, television producer
Bob Behrens, Executive Director, television producer

Board of Governors

Mary Ross Agosta, Director of Communications, Archdiocese of Miami
Manny Alvarez, Photojournalist, WFOR/CBS4, Miami
Fabio Apelbaum, Graphic Designer, Sherjan Broadcasting, Miami
Teri Arvesu, Executive Producer, Noticias23 Univision
Jeff Barnes, Owner, COO, Big Eyed Fish Media
Giovani Benitez, Investigative Producer, WFOR/CBS4
Holly Brobst, 11pm News Producer, WSVN-TV/7
Jeff Burnside, Special Projects Reporter, NBC6/WTVJ
Abel Castillo, News Photojournalist, WFOR/CBS4
Kathleen Corso, Special Projects Producer, WPLG-TV Local 10
Wendie Feinberg, Managing Editor, Nightly Business Report,
PBS/WPBT-TV/2
Steve Greenberg, Independent Producer/Reporter
Jack Kelly, VP for Production, WPBT, Miami
Reizel Larrea, Independent Producer
Kevin Layne, Cinematographer & Co-owner, Forti/Layne Entertainment, Miami
Richard S. Maher, Technical Manager, David Brinkley Studios,
Barry University, Miami Shores
Angela Gonzalez Ramos, Programming & Public Affairs Director, Univision 23
Dan Roujansky, President, Spotlight Media Group, Inc.
Laurie Stein, Independent Producer
Craig Stevens, News Anchor, WSVN-TV, Miami
Rodney Ward, Executive Editor of Nightly Business Report and
Senior Vice President of NBR Enterprises

Committee Chairs

Art & Design
Stacey Panson, Graphic Artist, Ft. Lauderdale
Emmy Awards
Spears Mallis, Mallis Enterprises, Inc., Miami
John Mays, Production Supervisor, WFOR/CBS4
Emmys On The Road
Craig Stevens, News Anchor, WSVN-TV, Miami
Membership Development
Tammy Darling, Director, WSVN-TV, Miami
Newsletter
Bob Behrens, Executive Director, Suncoast Chapter
Scholarship
Angela Gonzalez Ramos, Programming & Public Affairs Director, WLTV/Univision23
Web Site
Dave Game, Executive Producer for Digital Media/CBS Stations South Florida

Karla MacDonald, Suncoast Chapter Administrator
Tel. 954-322-3171
e-mail emmysuncst@aol.com

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TUBE TALK is written and published by newsletter editor, Bob Behrens who also is Executive Director of the Suncoast Chapter with design and layout produced by Stacey Panson who also is Chairman of the Art & Design Committee for the Suncoast Chapter. Submissions related to television in the Suncoast region of Florida, Mobile, Alabama, Louisiana and Puerto Rico are welcome. Send to emmysuncst@aol.com.