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Iraq, Katrina, terror dominate News Emmy Awards
2006-09-26
Reports by the late Peter Jennings on ABC News' "Iraq: Where Things Stand" series and a range of coverage of Hurricane Katrina and terrorism issues were among the winners Monday night at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards. CBS' "60 Minutes" led all shows with three wins. Jennings, the longtime ABC News anchor who died in August 2005, and ABC received two awards for "Where Things Stand," the network's weeklong report on the war in Iraq from early 2005, including outstanding continuing coverage and best story in a newscast. Jennings' executive producer, Jon Banner, accepted both awards, saying the reports were "a real tour de force for Peter" even though Jennings was only 71 days from disclosing that he had lung cancer. CBS and PBS each received five awards (including two for "Frontline"), while the History Channel received four and ABC and National Geographic Channel each earned three. CNN and NBC received two awards, while Discovery Channel and WashingtonPost.com each received one. Cinemax Reel Life also won best documentary for "Born Into Brothels." Many of TV journalism's brightest lights were among the roughly 1,000 attending the ceremony at the Marriott Marquis, including NBC's Brian Williams, ABC's Charles Gibson and former "CBS Evening News" anchor Walter Cronkite, who received a standing ovation. "NBC Nightly News" received an award for breaking news coverage for its September 1, 2005, newscast on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "This is for all the terrific people who I've worked with, producers, writers and editors and correspondents who put everything down and moved to New Orleans, who knew they had to cover the biggest story in so many years," Williams said. Also winning for investigative journalism in a nightly newscast was the "Money Trail" series on ABC's "World News Tonight" about big money and politics. "Anderson Cooper 360" won in the category of live coverage of a breaking news event for "Starving in Plain Sight," about the crisis in Rwanda. It also won a feature-story award for Dr. Sanjay Gupta's report on Charity Hospital in New Orleans after the hurricane. Terrorism -- and the coverage of it -- was another strong thread in the awards this year. "60 Minutes" won an award for outstanding investigative journalism for "Rendition," about a secret CIA operation that brings terrorism suspects to Third World countries known for torture. "Frontline" won for outstanding longform investigative journalism for "The Torture Question," which documented the use of torture in American prisons like Abu Ghraib. Bill Moyers, the PBS host and former CBS News analyst, received the lifetime achievement award. Moyers, a former aide in the Johnson administration, said he had to learn a lesson after leaving the White House. "It's not how close you are to power but how close you are to the truth," Moyers said. Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
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