Back in 1933, Ray Fernstrom of Paramount News back thought the newsreels should be given Emmy awards.
Unfortunately for Fernstrom, back in those days just moving to Seattle was not an option if he wanted a shiny gold statue for his shelf (sorry, really bad joke from a market I worked in).
The National News and Documentary Emmy that Fernstrom wanted to be created was not awarded to news programs until 1980. Rather, the big name award they competed for then starting two years after Fernstrom wrote his opinions down for posterity was the National Headliner Awards.
The deaths that Fernstrom hinted at would have been photographers Theodore G. “Shorty” Randolph of Hearst International Newsreel who was based out of Hearst’s Seattle bureau and killed while covering a story on the construction of the Ocean Beach Highway outside Stella, WA in 1927 and Charles R. “Charley” Traub of Pathe News who was killed at Daytona Beach during an auto race in 1929.
“After the inspiring broadcast nationally of the awards by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, wouldn’t it be great if that august body should recognize the newsreels?
Perhaps the oldest branch of the industry, the newsreels, were not mentioned, but I’m sure they will be considered in the future.
It would be almost impossible to review all 104 issues a year from each producer of newsreels, in addition to the other tasks of the Academy.
It would, nevertheless be fair and possible to judge a representative number from each company and make an award to the company and individual employes whose newsreels has been rated best for the year from the standpoint of scoops, photography, sound etc….
…An award to a newsreel crew could be made, for example, to that one responsible for the year’s outstanding newsreel scoop.
Scoops are what newsreelers are ready to give almost their lives to accomplish. To them they are part of the day’s work, but newsreels they are as life blood.
Newsreels have been taken too much for granted, yet many lives have been given to make them possible.”