The 45th News and Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony, held on Wednesday evening in New York by the American Television Academy, was designed to be a dazzling and festive event. However, it was marked by the serious content showcased throughout the evening, including scenes from battlefields in Sudan and Ukraine, the global refugee crisis, drug and unregulated weapons epidemics in the United States, threats of global warming, and, notably, the war in Gaza, which took center stage.
CNN emerged as the big winner of the night, earning numerous awards, primarily for its coverage of the October 7 massacre and the subsequent attack on Gaza. Yet, the event's true heroes, according to various speakers, were the Palestinian journalists who lost their lives in the line of duty. "Journalism is not a crime," declared some of the winning creators on stage. Among them was Bisan Owda, a young Gazan who received an Emmy for her web series "I Am Bisan from Gaza and I Am Still Alive."
Owda, 25, has become one of the prominent voices of Gaza residents under IDF attack, with her reports gaining significant resonance through AJ+, a part of the Al Jazeera network. In August, members of the organization Creative Community for Peace (including Haim Saban, Debra Messing, and Sherry Lansing) requested the American Academy disqualify Owda's nomination due to suspicions of her affiliation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. The American Television Academy rejected the request, stating there was no evidence of her belonging to the organization. Al Jazeera expressed its support for her amid "attempts to silence her reports from Gaza." Ultimately, Owda won the award for her reporting from Al-Shifa Hospital, recognized as the best short hard news story.
"This award is proof of the strength of one woman with one iPhone who survived nearly a year of bombings," said John Lawrence, an AJ+ producer who accepted the award on Owda's behalf. "More than a hundred Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza, including some of our colleagues from Al Jazeera. Their West Bank office was shut down under gunpoint last week. We thank you, the international journalism community, for supporting Bisan and the AJ+ team, and we urge you to join our call that journalism is not a crime." Al Jazeera also won another award in a completely different category for climate and weather coverage with the report "The Shark Fin Hunters," broadcast as part of the network's investigative program Fault Lines. Lead reporter John Rushing thanked the audience, praised Owda, and read aloud the names of several Al Jazeera journalists killed by the IDF, including Shireen Abu Akleh.
Members of the British Channel 4 team, who won the International Emmy for news coverage for their investigative series "Inside Gaza: Israel and Hamas at War," also saluted the Al Jazeera journalists. "I want to thank the other nominees, especially Al Jazeera, who have shown extraordinary commitment and lost many of their reporters during the war in Gaza," said host Matt Frei after receiving the award. "I want to remind you that 160 journalists have died in this war over the past year.
"Therefore, we are there to bear witness, and the more access we have to Gaza, the better," he said.
His production partner, Asmi Warren, emphasized the importance of local journalists who provide materials from within the Strip: "Testimonies from the field are what we do, and this conflict has been very challenging because we, as international journalists, cannot enter Gaza itself. During this time, we had to work with independent journalists and filmmakers mainly inside Gaza to bear witness to the truth, to get to the heart of the story."
Among other winners who joined the calls against the killing of journalists in Gaza was CNN's senior correspondent Clarissa Ward, who in the weeks following October 7 brought the stories of the massacre victims in Gaza's border region, winning two awards. "We express solidarity with our colleagues and express sadness and grief for the many who lost their lives in this brutal war. Journalism is not a crime," Ward said in her speech after receiving the first award for best live news reporting, awarded for her leading CNN's coverage of the "Israel-Hamas War." Ward also received a personal award for the best short-form ongoing news coverage for the chilling conversation with Thomas Hand, who tearfully expressed gratitude for being informed that his nine-year-old daughter Emily had been killed and not kidnapped – a report later corrected when Emily was returned to him in the first prisoner exchange.
CNN was also honored with the promising journalist award, given to network correspondent Nada Bashir, who frequently covers various topics in the Middle East, from natural disasters in the region to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "I cannot accept this award without acknowledging the outstanding work of our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza, without whom none of our reports would be possible," said Bashir, a British journalist of Libyan descent. Another prestigious award in the category of long-form ongoing news coverage was given to CNN's Anderson Cooper for his coverage of the Hamas attack titled "Terror in Israel" as featured on his daily segment Anderson 360 and the investigative program The Whole Story.
The Israeli side of the conflict coverage was also highlighted during the ceremony. The documentary "Brothers in Captivity" by Yoram Zak, produced for the investigative program "Uvda," ("Fact") which deals with siblings Maya and Itai Regev, who were kidnapped to Gaza and released in a deal with Hamas, did not win in the Current Affairs category (the award went to "Last Hospital: 30 Days in Myanmar" by Sky News, covering the conflict in Myanmar).
However, the interview by veteran American journalist Lesley Stahl on the program "60 Minutes" with the released captive Yarden Roman-Gat won the award for best-edited interview. In accepting the award, producer Shahar Bar-On called for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of 101 Israeli hostages. James Longman from ABC won the award for best live short-form interview with a broadcast titled "Israeli Leader Speaks Out," in which he spoke to former minister Tzipi Livni. Producer Seni Tienabeso explained that they did their best to express the sentiments of the Israeli public after October 7, while also expressing condolences to "the 112 journalists who lost their lives in Gaza while covering the conflict." An interview with Thomas Hand on CBS was among the nominees in this category.
This concluded the first part of the two-part Emmy Awards ceremony dedicated to news broadcasts. The second part of the event, where awards for documentary projects will be presented, will take place Thursday night. "Mourning in Lod," created by director Hilla Medalia for MTV, is nominated for an award in the contemporary documentary film category. The renowned American creator Alex Gibney will also receive special recognition with a lifetime achievement award from the American Television Academy. Gibney, as you may recall, is the executive producer behind the film "The Bibi Files," directed by Alexis Bloom, which deals with the corruption scandals involving Benjamin Netanyahu and his family, and which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival about two weeks ago.