VANCOUVER – Ten journalism students from the University of British Columbia won an Emmy Award in New York on Monday for outstanding investigative journalism for their documentary Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground.
It’s the first Emmy win by a Canadian journalism school.
The film, which is about the dumping of electronic waste in developing countries including Ghana, India and China, was broadcast on the PBS documentary show Frontline in 2009.
The 31st annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony took place in New York.
Allison Cross, a former Vancouver Sun and Postmedia News reporter, was one of the 10 UBC students involved in making the documentary. She was one of seven students who attended the awards ceremony Monday and said when the winners were announced the whole group was shocked.
"We were up against some really amazing pieces and some seasoned journalists. So we were hoping, but I think a lot of us were quite surprised by the outcome," said Cross, shortly after they won the award.
The documentary beat two from CBS: One called The Lost Children, which aired on the show 48 Hours Mystery; and 60 Billion Dollar Fraud, which aired on 60 Minutes.
It also beat a documentary called Child Witches in the Congo on ABC’s Nightline.
The students’ documentary was also nominated in the category of outstanding research, however they did not win in that category.
Cross, who now works for the Toronto Star, was thrilled to be among so many distinguished journalists to accept an Emmy Award in New York. "It’s a bit overwhelming for a young journalist," she said.
The students split into three groups to travel to Ghana, India and China. For her part, Cross went to China for "the experience of a lifetime" where she learned about how much e-waste countries are dumping in the rivers there.
"Hopefully people now have some insight into what happens to your computer," she said. "I hope they start acting more responsibly and look at alternative ways to recycle."
Also attending the ceremony was Alison Lawton, head of the Mindset Foundation and a documentary filmmaker, who donated $1 million to UBC to establish the international reporting program, which made the e-waste documentary.
"I think it opens the door for us to be recognized as a leader in investigative journalism," she said. "These students have now been bitten by the investigation journalism bug and they can see the important role they play as change agents."
Lawton said she was amazed at how much work the students put into making the documentary. "They went to the containers at the port in Vancouver and they watched people donate containers and followed them to the other side and then started to uncover the story. I was thrilled at the level of depth of their research at that age."
In the documentary, Peter Klein, who teaches the program, and the group of journalism students reveal how hundreds of millions of tonnes of the e-waste from Western countries have created toxic dumps in some of the poorest areas of the world.
Vancouver Sun
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