Christian Flores
Recipient of the BEST TELEVISION REPORTER award in The Charles E. Green Awards (2021)
Christian Flores
KEYE-TV, AUSTIN
Judge’s Comments:
From the border wall to transgender rights, Christian Flores tackled big-issue, complex topics with clean scripts and careful structure, producing well-reported and easily understood stories. Flores and his team were also creative. Using sidewalk chalk to mark the spot where Austin’s Congressional districts meet was pure genius, a supremely effective way to draw viewers into what could have been a ho-hum story about politics and process.
Most impressive is Flores’ detailed reporting. There’s no substitute for knowing your subject and this reporter has done the work necessary to effortlessly cite statistics, like the number of encounters along the Texas-Mexico border. His producers could have helped viewers absorb and understand those statistics, however, had they used graphics to illustrate them.
Flores’ live shots during Texas’ storm were compelling, full of useful information and peppered with facts. Reporting from an icy Austin highway, he warned viewers that power outages would not end soon. Getting electricity back, he said, would be a constant seesaw. To illustrate, he reported 3000 homes had gotten power back -- but 1500 had just lost it again. This was good information in the midst of crisis. Flores also used words to create context and meaning. Carefully stepping across ice, he said âthis is more like a road in Siberia than in Texas, quite honestly. I am fully confident that when Austin viewers heard that, they got the picture.
Mary E. Walsh
Producer
CBS News
Judge’s Bio:
Mary Walsh is the national security producer for CBS News; her work includes producing stories for the CBS Evening News, CBS Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes. She has been assigned to the Pentagon since 1993 and has covered the American military all over the United States and in many parts of the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Turkey, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Germany, the Philippines, and Korea.
As CBS News producer in Tokyo from 1989 to 1993, Walsh was responsible for news coverage in all parts of Asia – with a focus on China, Korea, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Japan. She was based in New York in 1987-89 and Atlanta in 1985-87. Highlights from those years include covering the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, the bombing of Pan Am 103 and too many hurricanes to count.
Walsh began her career at CBS News in 1979 as an assistant to the Political Director in Washington D.C. She covered Geraldine Ferraro’s vice-presidential campaign in 1984 and Vice President George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 1988.
She has won three Alfred I. DuPont awards from Columbia University, six Emmy awards, an Overseas Press Club Award, the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for Excellence in Journalism, a Wilber Award from the Religious Communicators Council, the University of Texas School of Communication 2010 Distinguished Alumnus Award and the 2013 Rosalie Wynn Hearst Distinguished Public Service Award.
A graduate of the University of Texas where she was editor of the Daily Texan, Walsh began her career as a journalist at the Rome Daily American in Italy in 1977.
To see excerpts of Christian Flores’s award-winning coverage, please play the clip below:
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