TV academy defends nomination of Palestinian journalist for News Emmy award

NEW YORK - The group behind the News and Documentary Emmy Awards defended its nomination of a video report from the Gaza Strip on Aug 20 after the journalist who filmed it was criticised for her connection to a group the United States considers a terrorist organisation.

Creative Community for Peace, an entertainment industry non-profit that opposes anti-Semitism and cultural boycotts of Israel, had published an open letter Aug 19 asking the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to rescind its Emmy nomination of It’s Bisan From Gaza and I’m Still Alive.

The eight-minute report was filmed and narrated by Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda and produced by AJ+, the digital publisher of Qatari-owned news channel Al Jazeera.

It showed what life was like for Ms Owda in late October 2023, when she lived in a tent outside Shifa hospital in Gaza City, and for Gaza residents, including an 11-year-old who said his parents had died when his home was bombed.

It is nominated in the category Outstanding Hard News Feature Story: Short Form, where it is competing against two other broadcasts from Gaza, by CNN and The Guardian, as well as a report from Ukraine by The New York Times and one from Haiti by PBS.

Hollywood has been wrestling with how to speak about the war in the Middle East since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping roughly 250.

Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 40,000 people, according to Gaza health officials. An Oscars acceptance speech by director Jonathan Glazer that compared the conflict to the subject of his Holocaust film, The Zone of Interest, provoked duelling open letters.

More than 150 signatories signed Aug 19’s open letter about the Emmy nomination, including music and film executives and performers, including Selma Blair and Debra Messing.

The letter said Ms Owda was affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which the US and the European Union deem a terrorist group. There are reports and photographs indicating that Ms Owda spoke at group events between 2014 and 2018.

“Choosing to elevate someone with clear ties to the PFLP not only legitimises a terrorist organisation, it undermines the integrity of the awards,” the letter says.

It adds that the nomination was deeply troubling “given the creator’s history of promoting dangerous falsehoods, spreading anti-Semitism and condoning violence”.

Mr Adam Sharp, president and chief executive of the academy, defended the Emmy nomination on Aug 20 in a response to Aug 19’s letter, saying that the nominees had been selected by two panels that included experienced journalists.

He added that the academy had not found evidence that Ms Owda was currently affiliated with the Palestinian group.

Ms Owda, who was 25 when her report from Gaza was published, could not be reached for comment. Al Jazeera, which is backed by Qatar’s royal family, did not reply to a request for comment.

The existence of the open letter was earlier reported by digital media company Puck.

Executive director of Creative Community for Peace Ari Ingel said in an interview on Aug 20 that war is horrific and what is happening in Gaza is horrible.

“But what you see with someone like her,” he said of Ms Owda, “is infusing some legitimate news stories with the propaganda twist and spin of ‘genocide’, which is being taken as truth.”

Ms Owda’s report has received a Peabody Award and an Edward R. Murrow Award, two prominent prizes in journalism. The News and Documentary Emmy Awards will be announced in September in New York. NY TIMES