Channel 39 Wins Emmy as Top News Station : Television: KNSD-TV garners 35 statuettes in local competition, even though it lags in the ratings.

Proving once again that there is no correlation between awards and ratings, KNSD-TV (Channel 39) was named Oustanding News Station in this year’s edition of the local Emmy Awards.

Channel 39’s news programs trail its main competitors in most time periods, but the station employees took home 35 statuettes--more than KFMB-TV (Channel 8) and KGTV (Channel 10) combined.

The awards were presented Saturday night at the Town and Country Hotel. The 2 1/2-hour ceremony was videotaped, and it is scheduled to air on most local cable systems Saturday at 8 p.m.

Traditionally, Channel 39 takes the Emmys very seriously, spending more money on entries and buying more tickets to the ceremony than the other stations. The Outstanding News Station award, however, the only general achievement award for a news team, has eluded the station in recent years.

Channel 39 anchorwoman Denise Yamada earned four awards--two for producing feature segments of “Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes” and “Koko’s Story”; one for writing the Hiroshima feature and one in the performer/news category.

Most of Channel 39’s awards came in technical categories. A promotional announcement for sportscaster Jim Laslavic, “Jim Laslavic, the Sports,” earned six awards for producers Doug Gilmore and Deborah Shaw, photographer John DeTarsio, Laslavic and audio technician Vince Lubinski.

DeTarsio and fellow Channel 39 photographer William Kuklinski each won four awards.

The only other four-award winner was Devin Polich, who took home an Emmy for his student project at San Diego State University, “Who Cares” (co-produced with Chris Packala), which won for student informational program. “I’m Not Trash,” a public service announcement about recycling aluminum, earned Polich three awards.

Channel 10, which won as outstanding news station last year, won 12 Emmys, including awards for its hour and half-hour newscasts and local spot news coverage. Channel 10 producers Jeff Godlis and Wayne Brown each took home three Emmys.

The other big winners were Channel 39 photographer-technician Roel Robles, Bruce Caulk of Poolside Productions and former Channel 8 weatherman Larry Mendte, each of whom earned three awards.

Mendte, who co-hosted the evening with KUSI-TV (Channel 51) anchorwoman Cathy Clark, won all three of his Emmys for his “Best of How Come?” special.

Channel 10’s “Troubleshooter” team of producer J.W. August and reporter Marti Emerald also won three Emmys, including one for investigative reporing for the feature “The Pope of Long Beach,” which exposed a charity scam. The report recently won Emerald and August a first-place award in the National Press Club Consumer Journalism Awards competition.

Channel 8 consumer reporter Bob Hansen took home an Emmy for journalistic enterprise and one in the writer/news category.

Channel 8’s Jody Hammond earned the Emmy in the same-day news feature category for her report on the departure of the Navy ship Acadia, and Beatriz Acevedo and Yuri Brena from XEWT in Tijuana earned Emmys in the entertainment programming category for an edition of “En Exclusiva.” It was the first time a Spanish-language entry from XEWT had received an Emmy.

This year, there were a record 591 entries, of which 259 were nominated. Eighty-six received Emmys. It is not structured as a competition; only those entries judged as outstanding earn awards.