'Prime Minister' wins two News & Doc Emmy Awards including Best Documentary for Throwback Thursday

Happy Throwback Thursday! I'm returning to the News & Doc Emmy Awards today, as I promised in 'Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller' wins 7 News & Doc Emmy Awards for World Oceans Day with the relevant paragraph from CNN Worldwide Honored with Six News & Documentary Emmy Awards.

CNN FILMS PRIME MINISTER WINS TWO EMMY® AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST DOCUMENTARY
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CNN’s recognition extended to the Documentary Emmy® Awards on Thursday night, where CNN Films’ Prime Minister won Best Documentary and Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. The acclaimed film premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, earning the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary before being acquired by HBO and CNN Films. Released theatrically by Magnolia Pictures, Prime Minister is available to stream now at CNN.com/Watch, on the CNN app, and on HBO Max.

I declared Prime Minister as the favorite to win Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary early, but I thought 2000 Meters to Andriivka was the most likely to win Best Documentary. Surprise!

Dame Jacinda Ardern posted a thank you speech to her Instagram.

Tonight the incredible team who made the documentary simply titled “Prime Minister” won the Emmy for best documentary. From the sidelines I saw these talented directors, editors, and producers all come together to create a film (which I have still only watched it in its entirety once..) that feels like the most accurate portrayal of what it’s like to lead with your heart on your sleeve. My huge congratulations to them all, especially Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz who co-directed it. But here, I want to make a special mention of Clarke, the first person who picked up a camera. I wasn’t the easiest person to film, and nor through the years of being PM was I the easiest partner. But that never changed the amount of support he gave in return. Our loved ones don’t choose politics, but they are still on the front line alongside us every day, cheering us on, keeping life at home going, reminding us why we’re there. So thank you, Clarke. Now it’s my turn to cheer you on xx

Clarke spoke at the awards tonight, and he saved his final words, rightly so, to thank New Zealand. Our home. We will both forever be grateful for the privilege of a lifetime.

Congratulations to Dame Jacinda, the documentarians, CNN, and HBO!

Since it's Throwback Thursday and the subject is politics, follow over the jump for the top serious political posts written during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

'Prime Minister' leads nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards

Happy Throwback Thursday! As I wrote yesterday, I'm resuming my series on the News & Doc Emmy Awards. Today's topic is Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. One nominee stands out, Prime Minister with two nominations as the preview image shows, Best Documentary and Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. The rest of the field has only the one nomination for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. On that basis, I'm declaring Prime Minister the favorite. Watch Prime Minister | Official Trailer | HBO.

“World leaders have rarely been captured with as much intimacy” - @variety

A rare and unfiltered portrait, #PrimeMinisterHBO chronicles the unexpected journey of Dame Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s 40th Prime Minister. Premieres September 30 on @hbomax.

I found Jacinda Ardern inspirational while she was Prime Minister during the pandemic, and I felt that way again watching this trailer.

Now for the nominees with just one nomination in roughly alphabetical order, beginning with Bodyguard of Lies | Official Trailer | Paramount+.

Bodyguard of Lies is the first unvarnished documentary on the Afghanistan War, exposing the falsehoods told to Americans and the secrets kept. The film reveals the staggering cost of deception: thousands of lives lost, trillions spent, and a truth buried for decades.

Watching that reminded me of what I wrote in Colbert and Meyers take closer looks at the Taliban taking over Afghanistan.

I expressed what a waste of time, money, and lives the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan was ten years ago in We could have had the Moon, instead we get Afghanistan. Seeing this collapse a decade later demonstrates that I wasn't disgusted enough at the squandering of blood and treasure in "the Graveyard of Empires" at the time.

It was even worse than I thought and the people in charge knew it.

Speaking of Afghanistan and "worse than I thought," I'm moving HOLLYWOODGATE - Official Trailer (2024) up to examine the aftermath.

Unprecedented and audacious, HOLLYWOODGATE is the riveting result of the year director Ibrahim Nash'at spent with the Taliban in the wake of the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Risking his life in the war-torn nation, Nash'at is on the ground with the Taliban when they enter an American base loaded with a portion of the roughly $7 billion worth of U.S. armaments left behind. Driving towards an astonishing and chilling end, Nash'at tracks Taliban leaders as they attempt to transform from a fundamentalist militia into a modern military regime, employing Hollywood-style propaganda to achieve their goals.

That's depressing.

I moved The Dark Money Game | Official Trailer | HBO to get the two Afghanistan nominees together.

Money Changes Everything.

#TheDarkMoneyGame: Ohio Confidential & Wealth of the Wicked by Academy Award Winner Alex Gibney premieres Tuesday, April 15 and Wednesday, April 16 at 9pm on @hbomax.

That's two nominated documentaries from Alex Gibney. The man is a powerhouse.

I close with The Making of a Japanese - Trailer (2023).

Which are the distinct attributes sculpting the Japanese identity? What makes you Japanese? In order to figure out the answers, the British Japanese filmmaker closely follows 1st and 6th graders for one year at a public elementary school in Tokyo, as well as their teachers, unveiling how teachers and students interact and shape one another. The outbreak of the pandemic and its restrictions constitute just another controlling measure. The kids in Japan are after all forged by their homeland's culture through a strictly defined education process which is in pursuit, with unwavering focus, of the appropriate equilibrium between individual progress and harmony of the society as a whole. Offering a unique hybrid perspective, the filmmaker critically examines a culture that is equally familiar to her as it is foreign, while she peruses the school environment in terms of an industrial production plant, in which the raw materials for processing are the students.

One of the points I make when I cover shows about government is that public education is government, too. I'm glad to see the News & Doc Emmy selection committee recognize this.

Now for Prime Minister's second category.


2000 Meters to Andriivka leads with six nominations, Turning Point: The Vietnam War follows with five nominations, Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time, Life After, and Love + War tie at four nominations, and Black Snow and Union tie at this one nomination. I had 2000 Meters to Andriivka penciled in to win this category because of its awards history, especially its wins at the DGA and WGA Awards, but seeing it lead this category, if not all nominees, in nominations inks that prediction in.

I'll probably examine Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time tomorrow. In the meantime, follow over the jump as I continue my retrospective of top posts about the Emmy Awards during the 15th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Howtown explains 'How half the US lost part of their minds'

I slept in today and have an appointment this afternoon, so I'm postponing the entry about the nominees for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards I've already created a preview image for. In its place, I'm sharing Howtown explaining How half the US lost part of their minds.

Leaded gasoline, paint, and pipes left a toxic fingerprint in the baby teeth of half of all Americans — and those tiny clues reveal how silent doses of lead rewired IQ scores, crime rates, and mental health for decades. In this Howtown episode we laser-scan my own baby teeth with “tooth detective” Manish Arora, revisit Herbert Needleman’s 1970s Boston study, and track economist Jessica Reyes’s state-by-state link between tetraethyl lead’s phase-out and the 1990s crime drop. New data from New Zealand’s Dunedin Study (analyzed by Aaron Reuben) show how early exposure still shapes Gen X brains, personalities, and social mobility, framing one of the largest environmental injustices in U.S. history.

I suspected this video would be about lead and I was right; it's too early for it to be about the pandemic, although COVID-19 causes brain damage. My wife and I are lucky to have suffered nothing more severe than "modestly lower energy levels and some slight brain fog" that cleared up after a little over a year.

The story Adam Cole and Joss Fong told complements the one related in SciShow explains the connection between the age of the Earth and unleaded gasoline plus more about lead with more of an emphasis on how lead affected and still affects public health, long after the U.S. and other countries stopped using leaded gasoline and lead paint. I had no idea how persistent the effects of lead exposure were and still are, including loss of IQ points through adulthood. I also learned how and why lead is so dangerous; it imitates calcium because its ions have the same charge (valence) and nearly the same size, so it gets incorporated in bones and teeth and interferes with nerve function. As I'm fond of writing, it's a good day when I learn something new and I learned a lot of new information from this video.

Speaking of learning new things, I'm trying to figure out when I might show this to my students. Since my students and I live in Michigan, home of the Flint Water Crisis, which Cole and Fong mention, I could show it when I lecture about water pollution. The video concentrates on leaded gasoline, which is an air pollution problem, so it would make more sense to show it then, especially since I talk about the health effects of air pollution. Besides, that part of the story focuses on the role Charles F. Kettering, who worked for General Motors, played in developing leaded gasoline. That's also a Michigan story. Either way, if I show this video, it will become another example of blogging as professional development.

That's a wrap for today's evergreen environmental topic. Stay tuned to see if I resume my Emmy Awards coverage tomorrow, or postpone it again.

Colbert and Corden express their grief and outrage over school shooting in Texas

I concluded Seth Meyers takes closer looks at guns by suggesting I do the same for other shows.

Meyers isn't the only late-night talk show host with blistering monologues on guns and guests favoring gun control. Both Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel did as well. Maybe I will post them, too. Stay tuned.

I begin today's follow-up with Entertainment Tonight's Texas School Shooting: Stephen Colbert and James Corden Near Tears.

Stephen Colbert and James Corden address the tragic Texas school shooting, which resulted in the deaths of 19 students and two adults.

While that's pretty much all parts of Stephen Colbert's monologue about the shooting, it's only part of James Corden's Message After the Texas School Shooting, so I'm sharing it in its entirety.

After at least 20 people were shot and killed in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, James shares his sense of heartbreak about the day's events and frustration about the way nothing ever seems to change when it comes to America's rampant gun violence.

I found that just as moving as James's speech in James Corden, Global News, and Kamala Harris on CNN update gun control for the eighth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News three years ago.

I'm returning to Stephen for the rest of the post, beginning with his first guest the day of the show, who said "We Will Buy Them Back And We Will Destroy Them" - PM Jacinda Ardern On Gun Control In New Zealand.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern outlines what her country's government did to enact sensible gun control after a terrible mass shooting in Christchurch.

Prime Minister Ardern also talked about what her country did to reduce the effects of the pandemic, something I haven't written about before. In fact, I've never mentioned New Zealand's Prime Minister before. Welcome to the blog, Prime Minister!*

Follow over the jump for two of Stephen's monologues about guns and another guest who discussed the topic.