The group behind the News and Documentary Emmy Awards defended its nomination of a video report from Gaza on Tuesday after the journalist who filmed it was criticized for her connection to a group the United States considers a terrorist organization.
Creative Community for Peace, an entertainment industry nonprofit that opposes antisemitism and cultural boycotts of Israel, had published an open letter on Monday 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 Bisan Owda and produced by AJ+, the digital publisher of Al Jazeera. It showed what life was like for Owda in late October, when she lived in a tent outside the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, and for Gazans she interviewed, 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, 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 the director Jonathan Glazer that compared the conflict to the subject of his Holocaust film, “The Zone of Interest,” provoked dueling open letters.
More than 150 signatories signed Monday’s open letter about the Emmy nomination, including music and film executives and performers like Selma Blair and Debra Messing.
The letter said Owda was affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the United States and the European Union deem a terrorist group. There are reports and photographs indicating that Owda spoke at group events between 2014 and 2018.
“Choosing to elevate someone with clear ties to the P.F.L.P. not only legitimizes a terrorist organization, 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 antisemitism and condoning violence.”
Adam Sharp, the president and chief executive of the academy, defended the Emmy nomination on Tuesday in a response to Monday’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 Owda was currently affiliated with the Palestinian group.
Owda, who is Palestinian and 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 Puck.
Ari Ingel, the executive director of Creative Community for Peace, said in an interview on Tuesday that war is horrific and what is happening in Gaza is horrible.
“But what you see with someone like her,” he said of Owda, “is infusing some legitimate news stories with the propaganda twist and spin of ‘genocide,’ which is being taken as truth.”
Owda’s report has already received a Peabody Award and an Edward R. Murrow Award, two prominent prizes in journalism. The News and Documentary Emmy Awards will be announced next month in New York.
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