Channel 4 News scoops fifth Emmy in eight years

Channel 4 News has won an International Emmy® For News for its coverage of ‘Hong Kong Year of Living Dangerously’.

This is the fifth time in eight years that Channel 4 News has won this award, most recently winning the award last year for its undercover investigation into Cambridge Analytica.

The series of reports from Hong Kong, which spanned seven days, revealed how in 2019, Hong Kong surprised itself, China and the rest of the world with unprecedented protests.

The reports by Matt Frei were filmed by Stuart Webb and produced by Chris Cunningham, Chermaine Lee Sheung Man and Vanesse Chan Wing Yan. Their coverage revealed violent clashes by militant student demonstrators who claimed they were fighting against police brutality, as part of broader protests against Chinese rule.

Ben de Pear, Channel 4 News editor, said: “It is a fantastic award won up against every other news broadcaster in the world, but their incredibly vivid and powerful reports exemplify everything we try to do at Channel 4 News. To win this, the ‘World Cup of TV news’, five times in eight years is incredibly gratifying. The team, especially the local producers, were operating at great personal risk to themselves and their work illustrates how important it is to hold all governments, anywhere, to account.

“It is an incredible endorsement of UK public service broadcasting, and the small but brilliant team at Channel 4 News who not only produced this outstanding coverage in the last year, but continued to come to work everywhere from the newsroom to ICU units as well as investigating every aspect of the handling of the pandemic through the first wave and they will continue for more that are to come. I could not be prouder of the team.”

The International Emmy® For News is the only category open to all international broadcasters with over 100 entrants from around the world.

Presenting the Emmys, International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences President & CEO, Bruce L. Paisner, said: “Tonight, we are privileged to recognize the courageous journalists behind these excellent programs.”

“It has been fashionable in some places to talk a lot about fake news, but the nominated programs make it clear that the news coverage around the world is not only not fake, but essential to people conducting their lives in these complicated times.”

The International Emmys were presented by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences during an online ceremony in conjunction with the US News Emmys alongside their American news peers during an online ceremony on September 21.