WMAL News nominates its 7 am newscast of Thursday, May 11, 2017 as Best Newscast in the 2018 Chesapeake Associated Press awards competition.

This contest hit day happened to fall on an especially busy news day in Washington, as hockey fans started their day with a familiar sense of deja vu – the Capitals were eliminated from the playoffs. Beyond that, we had reaction from the still-fresh news that FBI Director James Comey had been fired, along with a proposal from Virginia U.S. Senator to offer Comey a job. The local transportation beat took a turn with WMAL reporter stories on dedicated funding for the Metro system and a study on the poor condition of bridges in the DC region. We also reported on the latest scrubbing of the confederacy from U.S. history with the removal of soldier statue in New Orleans, followed by a kicker on paleontologists who double as Ghostbusters fans. Following a check on the Wall Street opening numbers, our sports segment follows with a walk-off win for the Nationals, and following a commercial break, a comprehensive traffic report from veteran reporter Jamee Whitten and a forecast from Weather Channel Meteorologist Ray Stagich.