Glory: Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy bags an Emmy
As a documentary filmmaker Shareem Obaid Chinoy has many awards to her credit from being the One World Media Award Broadcast Journalist of the Year (London, UK) to getting a South Asian Journalist Association Award for Outstanding Broadcast (New York, USA) to most notably, the Livingston Award (New York, USA) for Best International reporting under the age of 35. She is so far the only non-American to receive this prestigious award.
Sharmeen now has another accolade to adorn her mantle; the Internaitonal Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recently presented the celebrated US Emmy Awards at the Frederick P. Rose Hall of Jazz at the Lincoln Center in New York. The Emmy in the current affairs category was awarded to Pakistan’s Taliban Generation, a documentary by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy and Dan Edge.
Pakistan’s Taliban Generation sheds light on how the US-led war on terror is producing child terrorists in Pakistan. She travels throughout the country to determine the extent of the Taliban infiltration and speaks to a couple of young teenage recruits by the Taliban who describe their upbringing in extremist madressas which provide religious justification for attacks, and their training as terrorists and suicide bombers.
The academy’s president and CEO, Bruce L. Paisner, said that, “We congratulate the men and women behind these groundbreaking reports. Despite the danger surrounding them, they are committed to journalistic excellence and we are pleased to be recognising their outstanding work with an Emmy.” The Emmys will be distributed in a ceremony in November.
Receiving the Emmy must have been a proud moment for Sharmeen, but it is an even prouder moment for Pakistan.