Meredith Keller, a two-time West Texas A&M University graduate, earned two Emmy awards this month for her work producing the 6 a.m. morning newscast for ABC 7 in Seattle and just accepted a new position in Washington, D.C.
Keller, a former reporter and morning anchor for ABC 7 in Amarillo, earned her bachelor’s degree in and media communication in 2009 and her graduate degree in communication in 2012.
“To win something like this is absolutely thrilling, and also incredibly humbling. As a producer, you do not win an Emmy on your own. It is a careful group effort where everyone involved must show up and be ready to dig in. Everything must be spot on, and we all managed to pull it off together,” Keller said. “The two Emmy categories that our team won together could not be more different, and to me, show off just how skilled the group of journalists was that I was honored to work alongside.”
One Emmy was for a breaking news category for an extremely rare snow storm the community endured in the heart of Seattle.
“After nearly a foot of snow in some parts of a major city that rarely ever sees a flake, everything was forced to shut down for days, power was out for thousands, and we were in wall-to-wall coverage for hours,” she said.
The second Emmy award was for a farewell show Keller put together for a famed stretch of Seattle highway called the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
“Sounds odd dedicating an entire broadcast to a piece of road; however, this was touted as the highway of the future when it was built in the early 1950s. It had incredible views for drivers, but destroyed the views of many skyscrapers in its path, depleting property value,” Keller said. “Eventually the Viaduct was too old, and frankly not sturdy enough to endure a major earthquake, to save. People were actually so torn up about losing it they shut it down for weeks prior so locals could walk its beat-up pavement and take photos of Puget Sound.”
Keller recently left Seattle to take a job as a morning producer for “Good Morning Washington” in Washington, D.C. She previously won an Emmy Award in 2018 for producing coverage of the crash of an Amtrak speed train on Interstate 5. She describes her education from WT as invaluable and a well-rounded scope of instruction that has carried her throughout her career.
“Even the lessons I did not think would apply to the job title I was striving for are something I cherish,” she said. “Not only did my instructors teach me the principles of journalism, but what it means to be a part of something that is much bigger. To me, to really study mass communications means you're refusing to be a specialist. You want to be able to inform, or entertain on every media platform possible. You not only understand what it takes to execute your vision behind the scenes, but how to step in and broadcast your message yourself with confidence.”
The Emmys are run and voted on by members of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. For most categories, members from each of the ATAS's branches vote around June to determine the nominees only in their respective categories. All members can, however, vote for nominations in the best program categories.
-West Texas A&M University