I told my readers to expect "two or three entries about the News and Documentary Emmy Awards" at the end of Ten Emmy Awards for 'Game of Thrones' plus other speculative fiction winners. Today, the day of the award ceremony, I begin delivering on that promise with the swan song for Al Jazeera America, which announced this past January that it was shutting down. The cable news channel followed through, closing in April. However, it kept up its excellence in journalism right up to the end, which earned the outlet 10 Emmy nominations, making it the seventh most nominated news source behind ABC News with 11 nominations and ahead of The New York Times with 9.
Al Jazeera America 10The categories include Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting in a
Fault Lines 5
Baltimore Rising 1
Conflicted: The Fight for Congo’s Minerals 1
Forgotten Youth 1
Forgotten Youth: Inside America’s Prisons 1
The Puerto Rico Gamble 1
Al Jazeera America Presents 2
Freeway: Crack in the System 1
Guantanamo’s Child 1
Ali Velshi On Target 2
Hitting The Brakes: Chicago’s Red Light Camera Scandal 1
Slave Wages For The Disabled 1
America Tonight 1
Emmett Till Special 1
Regularly Scheduled Newscast (2 for Ali Veshi), Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in a News Magazine (1 for Fault Lines), Outstanding Investigative Journalism in a News Magazine (1 for Fault Lines), Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting in a News Magazine (2 for Fault Lines), Outstanding Coverage of a Current News Story: Long Form (1 for All Jazeera America Presents), Outstanding Investigative Journalism: Long Form (1 for Al Jazeera America Presents), Outstanding Writing (1 for America Tonight), and Outstanding Research (1 for Fault Lines). In future years, some other outlet will get these nominations, but I'll miss Al Jazeera America. I'll be a good environmentalist and recycle what I wrote in January about the channel closing down.
I appreciated Al Jazeera's investigative reporting and presentation without sensationalism. In that, I'll echo what Al Jazeera America CEO Al Anstey wrote in an email to his employees: "I know the closure of AJAM will be a massive disappointment for everyone here who has worked tirelessly for our long-term future. The decision that has been made is in no way because AJAM has done anything but a great job. Our commitment to great journalism is unrivaled."And it was, right up to the end.
Leaving absolutely NOTHING upon which we can rely for news, local or foreign. A great loss.
ReplyDeleteNot nothing, but it certainly makes it more difficult to find something about the U.S. that is Americans would find unbiased on cable TV. Maybe BBC America's news programming. Maybe that's the point; we have to go outside the US (I'd say overseas, but CBC is another good source) to find one-stop shopping for good news on TV.
DeleteLeaving absolutely NOTHING upon which we can rely for news, local or foreign. A great loss.
ReplyDeleteSorry, even with your duplicate comment, this won't be the most commented on entry for September.
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