A TVNewser tipster tells us and NBC News confirms that several NBC News executives who attended the duPont-Columbia awards ceremony last night, walked out of the event. NBC won two awards: for the Richard Engel documentary "War Zone Diary" on MSNBC and for a Dateline segment titled "The Education of Ms. Groves."

But several NBC executives including news division president Steve Capus walked out of the ceremony when an silver baton went to Dallas' ABC station, WFAA for a story titled "Television Justice." The series investigated "how the local police in Murphy, Texas collaborated in the sting operations of Dateline's To Catch A Predator."

We're told the executives returned to the ceremony after WFAA accepted their award. As you can imagine, the points of view from NBC and ABC insiders about the quality of journalism that went in to the WFAA stories, differs dramatically.

When asked for comment, NBC spokesperson Allison Gollust told TVNewser: "our executives' actions speak for themselves."