EMMY NOMINATIONS FOR NEWS SHOWS

NEW YORK — Outstanding news and documentary coverage of earthquakes, volcano eruptions, plane crashes, hijackings and hostage sieges were recognized with Emmy Award nominations from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Among the 126 nominations from 631 entries, the Public Broadcasting Service led the pack with 48. As announced by the TV Academy Friday, ABC was second with 38, followed by CBS with 28, NBC with 10 and syndicated programs with two.

The “CBS Evening News” with Dan Rather has been losing ground in the nightly news ratings war but picked up 15 Emmy nominations. ABC’s “20/20” had 11, PBS’ “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” had eight and ABC’s “Nightline” had seven.

Programs on the TWA hostage flight, the Achille Lauro aftermath, the crash of a Delta flight and the Colombian volcano eruption all were nominated for ABC. CBS had the other two nominations in the category--the Mexican earthquake and the Geneva summit.

For coverage of a breaking news story in segments, ABC and CBS each had three and PBS had one.

The PBS documentary series “Frontline” earned the only nomination for investigative journalism programs for the show “Retreat From Beirut.”

Ted Koppel of “Nightline” was nominated for outstanding interview in a program for “In South Africa,” as was Harvey Fierstein for PBS’ “The Times of Harvey Milk.”