MUMBAI: The 27th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards were presented by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in the US . During the ceremony, the Lifetime Achievement Award was given to PBS journalist Bill Moyers. Moyers was honored for his contributions as a television journalist and documentarian over more than three decades. Presenters of the Lifetime Achievement Award included his wife and business partner Judith Davidson Moyers, legendary newsman Walter Cronkite, former Chairman and CEO of CNN News Group Tom Johnson, and PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger.
CBS and US pubcaster PBS took five trophies each. The History Channel won four awards. ABC picked up three citations whileCNN won two awards. The National Geographic Channel won three awards.
CNN won an Emmy for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Breaking News Story–Long Form for Starving in Plain Sight. This appeared on Anderson Cooper 360º in August 2005. For those reports, Anderson Cooper and Jeff Koinange and their crews put faces and names to one of the most underreported crises in the world today: famine in Niger.
The network also won an Emmy for Outstanding Feature Story in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast for Charity Hospital. This was a segment from Dr. Sanjay Gupta documenting the plight of New Orleans’ Charity Hospital after Katrina hit landfall. Gupta and CNN Production crews debunked official reports that the hospital had been completely evacuated, showing how dozens of doctors, nurses, hospital staff and patients struggled for days at the hospital. The segment appeared on Anderson Cooper 360º in September 2005. The award for Historical Programming – Long Form went to PBS' Slavery and the Making of America Seeds of Destruction
The award for the best Science, technology and nature programming went to the National Geographic special, Predators at War. Also at this ceremony, three press organizations --New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, The International Press Institute (Vienna) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans Frontieres), headquartered in Paris – were honoured for their work in the defense of freedom of the press worldwide.
Two Emmy Awards were presented to international news organizations in the categories of Breaking News & Continuing Coverage by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The award for coverage of a breaking news story in a regualrly scheduled news cast went to NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams for
Hurricane Katrina: Moment of Crisis. The award for continuing coverage of a news story in a regularly scheduled newscast went to ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings for Iraq: Where Things Stand 3 on ABC.
Also this year, the first Emmy Award for News & Documentary programming distributed via non-traditional platforms, including the Internet, cellphones, portable media players and other devices, was presented.
