9/11 Drives Nominations for News Emmys

Coverage stemming from the events of Sept. 11 and its aftermath not surprisingly dominated nominations for the 23rd annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards announced Monday, with PBS amassing the most bids in a year that saw a record number of submissions.

Broadcast networks as usual garnered the lion’s share of nominations, with PBS totaling 41, while 26 went to ABC and 19 to CBS. NBC and pay service HBO tallied 10 nominations apiece, and cable network CNN earned eight. MSNBC and CNBC combined for nine nominations, eight of those going to “National Geographic Explorer.”

Nine other networks received three or fewer nominations, though Fox News Channel--currently the most-watched cable news channel--was shut out.

“The CBS Evening News” amassed nine nominations overall--seven of those for the main newscast anchored by Dan Rather--while ABC’s “World News Tonight” totaled seven and “NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw” took five, including three of four bids for outstanding coverage of a breaking news story in a regularly scheduled newscast, recognizing segments titled “Anthrax Attack,” “Attack on America” and “Kabul Liberated.”

CBS, meanwhile, split a dozen nominations among its three prime-time newsmagazines: “60 Minutes,” “60 Minutes II” and “48 Hours.”

PBS spread its nominations among a wide variety of programs, including a handful for the documentary series “POV” and a quartet for “Nova.” Public television also claimed four of five nominations in the science/nature and cultural/artistic programming categories.

An installment of PBS’ “POV” series, “Promises”--about children in Jerusalem--will vie in the best documentary category with “CNN Presents: Beneath the Veil,” a pre-Sept. 11 documentary about oppression in Afghanistan, and HBO’s “Cinemax Reel Life: Legacy,” an Oscar-nominated film about life in a Chicago housing project.

Beyond Sept. 11, coverage areas garnering attention included reports related to the worldwide AIDS problem and exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (a sister organization to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in North Hollywood, which presents the nighttime Emmys) said it received 1,654 entries, a 15% increase over the previous year.

The awards, encompassing 28 categories, will be presented Sept. 10 in New York. The national academy is planning a series of events that week under the heading “9/11 to 9/11: A Tribute to News Professionals.” The News Emmys will also feature the first life achievement award, to former ABC News President Roone Arledge.