And the Emmy Goes to...
BY Stephen Talbot

Reporter Gwynne Roberts projected on screen receiving the first award of the evening for his broadcast story, "Saddam's Road to Hell."

FRONTLINE/World was honored twice last week at the 28th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards in New York. We received one Emmy for our broadcast story, "Iraq: Saddam's Road to Hell," by producer/reporter Gwynne Roberts, and another Emmy for "Libya: Out of the Shadow," one of our "Rough Cut" Web original videos by reporter Marco Werman and producer John MacGibbon.

The very first Emmy of the evening went to our Iraq story about Roberts' harrowing search for Kurds who disappeared under Saddam's regime. It won for "outstanding investigative journalism in a news magazine." This was particularly gratifying since we were competing in a tough category, which included a strong 60 Minutes story about war profiteering in Iraq.

Soon after, the Academy started handing out the awards for the new broadband Emmy categories, and our story about a solar eclipse in Libya, which provided a rare opening for outsiders (including our reporter) to visit the previously closed-off country, won for "outstanding arts, lifestyle and culture programming."

Michael Sullivan FRONTLINE's executive producer for special projects (left) with FRONTLINE/World's series executive director Sharon Tiller and series editor Stephen Talbot.

Our parent series, FRONTLINE, went on to win two more Emmys for documentaries, "The Lost Year in Iraq" and "Sex Slaves," as well as an overall award for excellence on the 25th anniversary of the series, which executive producer David Fanning launched in 1983.

This year FRONTLINE/World had been nominated for a total of five Emmys, including four in the broadband categories. Our other nominees included Marian Marzynski's immigration story, "Chicago: Little Mexico," Sasha Khokha's "Calcutta Calling" and
Marco Werman's "France: Soundtrack to a Riot." You can view them all online here.

Last year, we earned an Emmy nomination for Amy Costello and Cassandra Herrman's report on the Sudanese government's campaign of terror in Darfur, "Sudan: The Quick and the Terrible."

FRONTLINE/World debuted on May 23, 2002 with an investigation of international arms trafficking, "Gunrunners." Since then, we have produced 26 episodes of the series. Our next broadcast is set to air November 6, featuring a story by investigative reporter Stephen Grey, "Extraordinary Rendition," about the CIA's controversial program of capturing terror suspects and transporting them to countries where torture is commonplace.

Winning in the broadband category, reporter Marco Werman with FRONTLINE/World's senior interactive producer, Jackie Bennion.

Our Web site has always featured streaming video of our broadcast stories, which you can access easily in our archived story list. Then, in the summer of 2005, we launched "Rough Cut," a series of online videos produced exclusively for our Web site. To date, we have presented 60 of these, including our Emmy-award winner about Libya, which was later featured in our October 2006 TV episode.

Take a look at some of our recent online videos about a San Francisco doctor dedicated to restoring eyesight to people in Tibet; the woman whose search for her missing husband set off a political storm in Pakistan; and an investigation of prostitution in Dubai, the Las Vegas of the Persian Gulf. Our next Rough Cut video -- "Undermined" -- exposes the human costs of China's rapidly expanding coal mines, launching October 4.

Stephen Talbot
Series Editor, FRONTLINE/World

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