The local station KCBS won a regional Emmy Aug. 25 for its coverage of the death of Justin Carr ’14, who died from idiopathic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in February 2012.
The honored news piece, in which Carr’s parents explain how they were dealing with their son’s death, aired Aug. 12, 2013.
It showed pictures of Justin from birth to death, including images of Justin swimming and on vacation.
The piece also included a sound clip of Justin singing “The Star Spangled Banner” and an explanation of Justin Carr for World Peace, a foundation aiming to spread awareness of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
“We had been approached by many news stations to talk about Justin,” Susan Carr, Justin’s mother, said. “After a few months of gathering our composure, we felt that CBS producer Raymond Bell was suited to cover Justin’s story because he had actually met Justin before on a few occasions. Mr. Bell had interviewed Justin twice before, and he was personally connected and wanted to tell the story about who Justin was, not necessarily the details of what happened.”
Bell also won an Emmy in 2010 for sports news production.
The film crew spent 10 hours in the Carrs’ home, filming Justin’s parents and bedroom, which had been left unchanged since his death.
“They captured the essence of who Justin was and how he was such an integral force in our home,” Carr said.
The Carrs attended the local Emmy presentation at the Nokia Theater as guests of CBS.
Justin’s story was categorized as a light news story.
“Prior to the start of the show, the audience was told, ‘You have one minute to get to the stage and one minute to make your speech,’” Carr said. “We had not communicated with Ray [Bell] before we sat down what we were to do if we won. When Justin’s story was called, Ray motioned for us to come up on stage with him. I could not believe it. When we got there, Ray was emotional because we found out that he too lost his only son, and he could not get the words out until about 30 seconds into it. His was probably the most emotional speech of the evening. Darrell and I were speechless.”
The news piece on Justin can be viewed at www.emmys.com/video/la2014-314450.
