Al Jazeera English’s Program Fault Lines Nominated for Five EMMY Awards

Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines strand,  which covers US affairs and the role played by America in the wider world, has been nominated for five prestigious Emmy awards by the New York based National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Remarkably that’s more nominations for 2018 than some of the leading industry competitors.

An episode entitled ‘The Ban”, has been nominated for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story in a Newsmagazine. The film looked at the human cost of measures introduced by US President Donald Trump, shortly after he took office in 2017, banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Another episode entitled ‘Heroin’s Children” has been nominated in three different categories for Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report; Best Story in a Newsmagazine, and Outstanding Editing: News. The film is set against the background of the worst drug crisis in the history of the US. Over the last decade, heroin abuse has skyrocketed, and drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50. After the US government declared the country's opioid crisis a "national emergency," Fault Lines went to Ohio to find some of the "invisible victims" of the epidemic - a generation of children who are being neglected, abandoned or orphaned by parents addicted to heroin.

The third nominee, ‘Haiti by Force’ has been singled out in the Outstanding Investigative Report in a Newsmagazine category.  It related to the dark side of UN peacekeeping missions and allegations that troops deployed to protect communities instead perpetrated violence and abuse. These vary from one-off attacks on children, women and/or disabled/incapacitated civilians, to larger, more complex operations, including prostitute trafficking and paedophile rings. As well as undermining the credibility of the UN's peacekeeping missions in some of the most vulnerable countries in the world, the abuse has also been covered up and mishandled at every stage.  One of the countries with the highest number of reported allegations was Haiti, where the UN mission has been plagued by reports of sexual abuse. Fault Lines went to meet some of the victims and confronted those who failed to protect them.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony for the 39th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards in New York this coming October.