WBFF Investigative Producer Stephen Janis, shown here last year with Reporter Melinda Roeder, has been nominated for the third consecutive time for his investigative work at the Baltimore-based TV station.

FORMER INVESTIGATIVE VOICE REPORTER’S WORK
WITH RETIRED COP NETS COVETED TV NOMINATION

WBFF gets 14 nods, including both senior anchors
 
UPDATE (Friday, May 16th):  When VoB published this report yesterday on WBFF Fox45’s numerous 2014 Emmy nominations, Photographer Todd Stewart was inadvertently left off the list. He was in fact nominated along with Reporter Melinda Roeder for spot news coverage of a Fells Point fire. Voice of Baltimore regrets the omission.
 
It was one of the worst days in the history of the Baltimore Police Department.

The harrowing Good Friday in 1976 when a murderous teen snipe mounted the stairs of a row home at Lombard and Carey Streets and proceeded to gun down seven city cops, killing one.

But now a dramatic recounting of the incident-turned-into-a-news-segment has netted an Emmy nomination for its creators, marking another successful collaboration between former Investigative Voice reporter Stephen Janis and retired BPD Homicide Lt. Stephen Tabeling.

The segment, titled “It Begins in the Mind,” narrates the harrowing hours before and after 18-year-old John Earl Williams let loose a fusillade of bullets from his Lombard Street row home, killing Police Officer Jimmy Holcombe and wounding six others.

Voiced by Fox Anchor Jeff Barnd and edited and shot by former WBFF Photographer Joseph O’Neil, the story earned the nod in the “Capital Emmy’s: History and Culture” category for the trio.

The nomination is the third year in a row Janis has been picked since he left his position as Content Director at Investigative Voice to become Investigative Producer at Fox45-TV.

The nod was one of 14 nominations for the Baltimore-based station, and one of four for O’Neil and two for Barnd.

WBFF Fox45-TV reporters and producers (left to right): Jennifer Gilbert, Kathleen Cairns, David Larson, Melinda Roeder and Stephen Janis — shown here after winning Emmys for their exemplary work in 2012 — have been nominated once again in 2014, along with (not shown) the station’s Chief Anchorman Jeff Barnd and Photographer Joseph O’Neil, Multimedia Analyst Paul Gessler, Janice Park, and Reporter Joy Lepola.

WBFF Reporter Melinda Roeder was nominated for spot news coverage of a Fells Point fire, and Kathleen Cairns received two nominations for spot news.

In addition, the station’s multimedia analyst, Paul Gessler, and Janice Park both received nominations for best in their respective categories, as did Crime & Justice Reporter Joy Lepola in the continuing coverage category.

In the “Feature News Report – Light Feature” category, David Larson and Anchorwoman Jennifer Gilbert received two nominations each for segments titled “Hope for Hayden” and “One Word.”

Roeder was also picked by the Chesapeake AP Broadcasters Association as Reporter of the Year.
 
VoB Staff Report
 
rpmkolchak@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
EDITOR’S NOTE:  Investigative Voice was founded by Stephen Janis in 2009 and was the forerunner of Voice of Baltimore, which co-published the collaborative work by Janis and Tabeling titled You Can’t Stop Murder, on which Janis’s Emmy-nominated TV segment was based.