BBC News wins Emmy Award for coverage of Myanmar earthquake

24 minutes ago

Paul GlynnCulture reporter

BBC News was among the big winners at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards in New York on Wednesday.

It was successful in the outstanding continuing coverage category [short form] for its reports and live updates around last year's devastating earthquake in Myanmar, which killed thousands of people and injured many more.

The coverage, seen around the world by millions on TV and online, was in a category which also included CNN's reports inside Iran and Gaza, as well as Scripps News's reporting of conflict in Haiti.

The BBC's Yogita Limaye was the first foreign journalist to enter Myanmar - undercover with colleagues - after the 7.7 magnitude tremor, which reached as far as Thailand, China and India, struck.

Accepting the award on behalf of BBC News, senior executive producer Paul Danahar noted how the country's government had "shut it off to the world" following the earthquake.

He praised his team for "going in anyway" to the city of Mandalay at great personal risk.

"They risked arrest, beatings and potential jail to tell a story to the world," he said.

He added: "This was real public service journalism. It was a story that the world doesn't tell very often.

"I'm really proud of the BBC for funding it."

Presenting the award, Hallie Jackson from NBC News noted how all of the nominees in the category had "devoted countless hours and effort to making sure that we keep telling these stories".

"There's an art to this," she said. "To sit across from a powerful person and to hold them to account, or to bring to bear expertise and experience that puts events into context, it is not easy - even though our nominees make it look that way."

The Emmy Awards - or Emmys as they are known - are a raft of separate ceremonies marking different achievements within the TV industry.

The news leg of the award series, presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, honours the best in US news and documentary programming over the past 12 months.