MINNEAPOLIS - FOX 21 News won two Upper Midwest Emmy Awards at ceremonies in Minneapolis on Saturday night.

The awards were among the most prestigious handed out Saturday - for best evening newscast and overall station excellence.  In both categories, FOX 21 competed with stations in mid-size markets in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and most of Iowa.

For more on the Upper Midwest Emmy Awards, go to www.midwestemmys.org.

Two Duluth TV stations win regional Emmys

By Andy Greder, Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH - Two and a half years after debuting in the Duluth TV market, Fox 21 News has captured its first two regional Emmy Awards.

KQDS-TV Channel 21 upset larger stations to win mid-sized market awards for station excellence and top evening newscast. Fellow Duluth station WDIO-TV Channels 10 and 13 won a mid-sized market award for top daytime newscast and one for a health and science feature story.

“KQDS had done a heck of job,” said Teresa Vickery, executive director of the National Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences, Upper Midwest Chapter. “There is no doubt about it.”

The local Fox affiliate, which began its newscast in March 2007 and is a news partner of the Duluth News Tribune, earned the station excellence award for overall quality, breadth and efficacy in news and sports coverage and community relations. The station beat fellow nominee KGAN-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The awards were announced Saturday night in Minneapolis.

Fox 21 earned the top evening newscast after submitting what it considered its best newscast in the past year, the March 3 show that included the 911 tape of a 23-year-old Duluth man who taunted police after stealing a car. The win came against nominees WDIO and KCCI-TV in Des Moines.

KCCI “is nationally known for being a powerhouse, so it’s an impressive win against a really good station,” Vickery said.

KQDS and WDIO won in the mid-sized market tier, a segment of stations based on market population. The mid-sized market tier includes stations ranked from 21st largest to 140th largest nationally and based in Minnesota, western Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa. Stations in the Twin Cities, ranked No. 15 in the U.S., mostly compete against themselves.

Given Duluth’s rank, the wins are more noteworthy. Duluth sits at No. 139, while Cedar Rapids is at No. 89 and Des Moines is No. 73.

“It’s like a high school team trying to play a college team,” said Julie Moravchik, news director at Fox 21. “That is what makes it so phenomenal.”

The local ABC affiliate’s winning feature story, titled “Sophia’s Story” and by reporter Cassie Limpert and photographer Dan Bergh, beat out nominees across all segments, including stories from Twin Cities stations KSTP-TV, WCCO-TV, KARE-TV and Twin Cities Public Television.

“They were up against the big dogs — the really big dogs — and they won,” Vickery said.

WDIO’s daytime newscast win came against KGAN.

Moravchik looked back to the station’s origins when putting the wins into perspective. She recalled how she and her staff walked out of WAST-TV Channel 25 in Ashland about three years ago when the station’s owners tried to combine news and sales staffs. In her acceptance speech, Moravchik said she commended her staff for standing up for ethics in journalism during that difficult time.

“This award is proof that you have to do the right thing no matter what,” Moravchik said Monday.