FRONTLINE’s David Fanning to Receive Lifetime Achievement Emmy

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) today announced that David Fanning, founder and executive producer of FRONTLINE, will receive its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the 34th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards on Tuesday, Oct. 1.

Past recipients of the award include Ted Koppel, Bill Moyers, Frederick Wiseman and Tom Brokaw.

“FRONTLINE is among the most distinguished public affairs documentary series in television history,” David Winn, Director of the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, says in NATAS’ announcement. “Executive Producer David Fanning has served as its guiding hand since the show’s debut in 1983. Under his leadership, FRONTLINE has produced an astonishing body of work — over 530 films — and maintained a 30-year commitment to serious reporting on important topics. We are pleased to honor David Fanning for his remarkable career, and for FRONTLINE’s decades-long commitment to journalistic excellence, integrity, and independence.”

News of Fanning’s Lifetime Achievement Award comes as FRONTLINE marks its 30th year on the air.

“I am deeply honored by this recognition from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences,” Fanning says. “It’s been my great privilege to do this work over all these years, and to share it with so many talented people who have together made FRONTLINE what it’s become.  I look forward to all the exciting possibilities that a new age of public media promises.”

Read more about the award here.

Watch Fanning tell the remarkable story of FRONTLINE in “Once Upon a Time … in 1983,” a video marking the series’ 30th anniversary.