KARE Minneapolis-St. Paul

Steve Eckert, a veteran TV newsman with stations and NBC news, was given the task of building an investigative unit at Gannett’s NBC affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul. He’s adding staff and equipment as part of a plan that involves more than rooting out the corruption, flawed systems and stupidity on which journalists thrive. He wants KARE to produce stories so compelling that they “make viewers feel the same exhilaration that I felt when I found that smoking-gun document in the dusty basement of the courthouse.”

Station winners include KUSA Denver, KARE Minneapolis-St. Paul, KMGH Denver, Hearst Television and Belo Corp. The awards from the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism  will be presented at the National Press Club in Washington on April 19.