Author: Neon Vincent

With the general election tomorrow, it’s time to me to turn my attention to it, something I haven’t done since I wrote Whitmer vs. Schuette for Governor and Stabenow vs. James for Senate as turnout shattered records at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.  Fortunately, PBS NewsHour gave me exactly the topic for today in Why this tight Mich. race for attorney general matters.

Many states will be selecting an attorney general on Election Day. From time to time, these officials, who represent their states in legal proceedings, have acted as a check on federal policies. Christy McDonald of Detroit Public Television shares a look at a close race in Michigan, where Democratic candidate Dana Nessel is running against Republican candidate Tom Leonard.

I’m surprised I only mentioned Dana Nessel once on my personal blog in U.S. Supreme Court to hear Michigan marriage equality case three years ago.  I went to the Michigan Democratic Endorsement Convention this spring to vote for her, allowing her to get the nomination.  I even have a lawn sign for her.

It’s no secret who I’m voting for.

I am not done with the Michigan Attorney General contest as Last Week Tonight with John Oliver featured State Attorneys General in last Sunday’s episode.  Watch for the mention of Dana Nessel.

State AGs have become major partisan players in national politics, so the races to elect them are worth your attention.

That’s right, Nessel actually used the following as part of a campaign ad.

I don’t know if doing so was smart, but at least it showed she has a sense of humor, however questionable.  Besides, she’s not wrong.

Speaking of questionable and wrong, there’s this image of Bill Schuette.

I didn’t have any doubt who I was voting for between Gretchen Whitmer and Schuette before, but after watching the segment that screenshot came from, I wouldn’t have had any doubt anyway.

Follow over the jump for more from Michigan.

The next Michigan election story comes from CBS News: House candidate Rashida Tlaib looks to make history in the midterms.

Rashida Tlaib is on the verge of making history as she runs unopposed as the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s 13th Congressional district. CBSN’s Reena Ninan spoke to Tlaib, who would be one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress.

Reena Ninan asked Tlaib about a demonstration I covered in Trump greeted by protestors in Detroit.  Tlaib also protested another Trump campaign stop the next month, so she is no stranger to confronting him and his policies.  It was because of these protests that I cheered both her entering the contest to replace John Conyers and her winning the Democratic primary for the full two-year term.  I’m still cheering her on.

The CBS News story accompanying the video noted that Tlaib isn’t really running unopposed.  She is facing a write-in campaign from Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones, a development Michigan Radio described as “unwelcome.”  Jones won the primary for the special election to fill the rest of Conyers’ term but lost to Tlaib for the regular election, thus preventing Tlaib from being the very first Muslim woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, just one of the first.  WDIV reported that John Conyers III is joining Jones as a write-in candidate.  Both of them lost to her in the primary.  I consider both of them to be sore losers and I hope and expect both to fail.  It helps that the Detroit Free Press has endorsed Tlaib.

I don’t live in the 13th District (I live in the 9th with the 14th across the street), so I don’t have a sign for her on my lawn.  Just the same, I’ll post one for her on my blog.

I conclude today’s report with CBS News asking Midterm voter turnout hasn’t topped 50% in more than a century. Will it this year?

In the past century, the highest midterm turnout the country has seen was 48.7% in 1966. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, spoke to CBSN about whether 2018 might be different.

I’m with Sabato, the answer to the question will most likely be no; voter turnout nationwide won’t top 50%.  However, I do expect it to be high for a mid-term, say in the mid-to-high 40s.

That’s also expected to be true in Detroit, where WXYZ reported City of Detroit preparing for large voter turn out on Election Day.

To place this news in a statewide perspective, I’m quoting the Detroit Free Press: A record 4 million Michigan voters projected for Nov. 6 election.

After a record voter turnout in the August primary, local clerks are gearing up for an even bigger showing for the Nov. 6 general election.

Chris Thomas, a national voting expert and the former longtime director of elections for the Secretary of State, said Tuesday he expects statewide turnout in November to be in the neighborhood of 4 million voters, setting a new record.

“I think it will be higher than in 2006 when we hit 3.8 million,” he said. “I generally wouldn’t use primary results to make predictions about the general, but this was a big jump. I particularly looked at the Oakland County returns, where they generally get between 193,000 and 200,000 voters, and they were at 320,000.

“There’s a bit of a pent-up desire to vote, not only with all the statewide offices open, but the ballot proposals are stimulating enthusiasm.”

Detroit officials project that between 41 and 46 percent of the city’s 470,000 registered voters will cast a ballot Nov. 6, marking a significantly higher turnout than in previous elections. Voter turnout in both 2010 and 2014 was 31.4 percent.

I am not surprised, as turnout for the August primary shattered records.  I’m also glad that Janice Winfrey has apparently improved voting operations in Detroit, as I was not impressed with the results of the 2016 recount; she did not appear to be running a tight ship then.  I hope voting in Detroit goes much more smoothly and efficiently next week than it did two years ago.

That’s the election news from Michigan.  Remember, every vote counts.

“I have one last topic to examine, the opioid crisis.  Stay tuned.”  So I concluded ‘Cries from Syria’ versus ‘The Wounds of War’ plus other News and Documentary Emmy nominees about the Syrian Civil War and so I begin this evening by examining “Heroin’s Children” on Al Jazeera English USA’s “Fault Lines,” which earned three nominations, Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report, Best Story in a Newsmagazine, and Outstanding Editing: News, making it the most nominated entry about the opioid epidemic.

Joining “Heroin’s Children” in the field for Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report are another report on the opioid epidemic, “America Addicted” on “PBS NewsHour,” the “60 Minutes” segment “Out of Darkness,” “CNN Special Reports” on “Separated: Saving the Twins,” and “Sunday Morning” segment “Evergreen.”  My usual method of handicapping the nominees favors “Herion’s Children” simply because it has the most nominations, but that’s not guaranteed to be foolproof.  Neither is my other way, which is to pick repeat winners.  For example, PBS NewsHour’s “The End of AIDS?” won Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report last year, so it would be my other choice and in fact would be more likely as I’m sure there are more PBS voters in the electorate than Al Jazeera voters.  With that in mind, here is the opening of “America Addicted” on “PBS NewsHour,” Opioid addiction is the biggest drug epidemic in U.S. history. How’d we get here?

Every day brings another story about the depth of the country’s opioid crisis. A rise of pain killer prescriptions from doctors and a pharmaceutical industry eager to boost sales in the 1990s sparked a wave of addiction that shot up by almost 500 percent in the last 15 years. As a prologue to our series covering the opioid crisis, “America Addicted,” William Brangham reports on how we got here.

To watch the rest, here’s the playlist.  If  my readers do, they’ll encounter Huntington, West Virginia Fire Chief Jan Rader, one of the people profiled in “Heroin(e),” one of two Oscar nominees that are competing for Outstanding Short Documentary and the one I think is the favorite.

For the next two categories, it’s time for me to be a good environmentalist and recycle beginning with the relevant passage from ‘Charlottesville: Race and Terror’ tied for most nominations at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

The competition for Outstanding Editing: News appears just as stiff, as Al Jazeera International USA’s “Fault Lines: Heroin’s Children” has two other nominations for Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report and Best Story in a Newsmagazine.  The other nominees, “50 Years of 60 Minutes” and fellow “VICE News Tonight” reports “Battle for Marawi: On the Hunt for ISIS Militants” and “Libya: Intercepting Migrants,” only have nominations in this category.  My take is that the contest for this award is between Charlottesville and opiates/opioids.

Now to recycle from ‘Cries from Syria’ versus ‘The Wounds of War’ plus other News and Documentary Emmy nominees about the Syrian Civil War.

The final category for which “The Wounds of War” earned a nomination is Best Story in a Newsmagazine, where it is competing against fellow “60 Minutes” segment “Investigating the Opioid Epidemic: The Whistleblower and Too Big to Prosecute” produced in cooperation with The Washington Post, the “Fault Lines” report “Heroin’s Children” from Al Jazeera International USA, another nominee about the opioid epidemic with two other nominations for Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report and Outstanding Editing: News, and two episodes of “Frontline,” “Battle for Iraq” and “Inside Yemen.”  The former also has a nomination for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story, while this is the only nomination for the latter.  Based on its total number of nominations, I think “The Wounds of War” is the favorite, but it is facing stiff competition for the trophy, particularly from “Heroin’s Children.”

With this quote, I’ve managed to name all the nominees about the opioid epidemic, as “60 Minutes” segment “Investigating the Opioid Epidemic: The Whistleblower and Too Big to Prosecute” produced in cooperation with The Washington Post, which is also nominated for Outstanding Investigative Report in a Newsmagazine.  In that category, it is competing against “20/20” in partnership with The Investigative Fund’s “Life and Death at the Border,” fellow “60 Minutes” segment “Friendly Fire,” “Fault Lines” report “Haiti by Force,” and the “On Assignment with Richard Engel” report “Panama.”  Only “Investigating the Opioid Epidemic: The Whistleblower and Too Big to Prosecute” has more than one nomination, so I’m picking it as the favorite.

Just as I embedded all of “Charlottesville: Race and Terror,” I am sharing all of Heroin’s Children: Inside the US opioid crisis | Fault Lines.

The United States is going through the worst drug crisis in its history. It now claims more lives than gun deaths, tears families apart – and shows no signs of abating.

That’s it for the nominees at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards, as the winners are being announced as this entry posts.  I plan on resuming the series about the winners of the Creative Arts and Primetime Emmy Awards that has ‘United Shades of America’ and ‘Life Below Zero’ both win at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards as its most recent installment.  Stay tuned.

I observed that “Mass shootings, hurricanes, and Syria dominated the news last year, so it’s no surprise they dominate the nominations and I plan on writing about all the nominees about them.”   I’ve written about nominees covering hurricanes and mass shootings, so it’s time to return to the News and Documenatary Emmy Awards and examine the 11 nominees with 17 nominations among them that reported on the Syrian Civil War.*

Syria has been such a dominant story that I have mentioned at least one nominee covering it in every entry about the News and Documentary Emmy Award nominees so far, beginning with Putin and Trump-Russia at the Emmy Awards.  There, I noted that “‘The Wounds of War’ and ‘Cries from Syria’ are probably the toughest competition, as both have four nominations each, tied for the most nominations for any single entry with ‘Charlottesville: Race and Terror’ by Vice News Tonight.”  Since my preference is to work my way down from the nominees with the most nominations, I am beginning today’s examination with “Cries from Syria,” breaking the tie because the list of nominees mentions it first.

I’m an environmentalist, so I begin by recycling what I already wrote about “Cries from Syria,” starting with this passage from a review in  The Hollywood Reporter that I quoted in The most honored political documentaries of 2017 examine crime, injustice, and the Syrian Civil War.

No less than three documentaries about Syria premiered in Sundance this year. Director Matthew Heineman’s City of Ghosts looked at the citizen journalists reporting from Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS in Syria. Last Men in Aleppo, from Feras Fayyad, looked at the so-called White Helmets in Aleppo, a group that goes in after every air raid in the Syrian city under siege to help save victims from the rubble. Both documentaries had a rather narrow focus that allowed them to explore the human impact and dimensions of a small part of the conflict.

Evgeny Afineevsky, who directed Cries From Syria, does the opposite, packing an overview of the entire six years of the complex conflict into a film of just under two hours in an approach that’s strongly reminiscent of his Oscar- and Emmy-nominated film Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom. Essentially a primer for those who haven’t watched or read the news from a reputable source since 2011, this compact and more than occasionally gruesome item is especially strong for its first three chapters, before it tackles the Syrian refugee crisis in too superficial and sentimental a manner.

That review calls for the movie’s trailer from HBO Documenary Films.

I can see why it was the fourth most honored documentary of 2017 as of the end of last year, tied with “Chasing Coral.”  The trailer alone shows a well-made and gripping film.

I already looked at its competition for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary in ‘Abacus,’ ‘Edith and Eddie,’ ‘Heroin(e),’ and ‘Last Men in Aleppo’ — Oscar nominees at the 2018 News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

Joining “Last Men in Aleppo” as nominees for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary are “Beware the Slenderman” and “Cries From Syria” from HBO, “National Bird” from “Independent Lens” on PBS, and fellow “POV” on PBS candidate “Almost Sunrise.”  “Cries from Syria” also earned nominations for Outstanding Writing, Outstanding Research, and Outstanding Music & Sound, so it has a better chance of winning a statuette than “Last Men in Aleppo.”

Four of the five nominees in this category have a direct or indirect relationship to the Syrian Civil War, with both “Cries from Syria” and “Last Men in Aleppo” being about the conflict itself, while “National Bird” examines U.S. drone warfare, some of which takes place in Syria as part of the fight against ISIS/Daesh, and the effect it has had on the veterans who have waged it.  “Almost Sunrise” looks at the issue even more indirectly, as described in IMDB.

The epic journey of two friends, ex-soldiers, who battle the moral injuries of war, and the temptation to escape through suicide, as they walk across America. Step by step, Tom Voss and Anthony Anderson confront the demons that haunt them, while discovering the power of community and spirituality to heal them.

“Almost Sunrise” even more directly examines the suffering of veterans.

The odd film out is “Beware the Slenderman,” which is about the horror figure from urban legend.  I might look at that for Halloween.  Right now, there is enough real-life horror to write about.

Speaking of which, it’s time to continue being a good environmentalist and recycle what I wrote about the nominees for Outstanding Writing: “‘Putin’s Revenge’ faces a less tough field for Outstanding Writing, ‘Alma’ and ‘The Wounds of War’ from 60 Minutes, fellow ‘Frontline’ episode ‘The Divided States of America,’ and ‘Cries from Syria’…”  Outstanding Writing may be a less tough field than Best Documentary, for which “Putin’s Revenge” is also nominated, but both “Cries from Syria” and “The Wounds of War” have four nominations at these awards and I think one of them may have a better chance than “Putin’s Revenge.”

“Cries from Syria” and “The Wounds of War” are also in direct competition for Outstanding Research along with “Let It Fall: Los Angeles: 1982-1992,” also nominated for Outstanding Historical Documentary, “Frontline” episode “Iraq Uncovered,” also nominated for Outstanding Investigative Documentary, and “The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick,” also nominated for Outstanding Promotional Announcement as well as being a four-time nominee at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, making it the only program nominated at both editions of the Emmy Awards for which it was eligible.  My intuition tells me that “The Vietnam War” has the inside track for this award simply because of Ken Burns’ history, pun intended.

The final category for which “Cries from Syria” earned a nomination is Outstanding Music & Sound, which I already wrote about in ‘Chasing Coral’ versus ‘Yosemite’ — two nominees for Outstanding Nature Documentary both examine climate change.  Time to recycle!

For their third nominated category, both “Chasing Coral” and “Yosemite” are competing for Outstanding Music & Sound along with the HBO Documentary Films “Cries From Syria” and “The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble” and the “Independent Lens” episode “Tower.”  The most formidable overall are “Cries from Syria,” which also has nominations for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary, Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Research, and “Tower,” about the first mass school shooting in U.S. history at the University of Texas, which earned a nomination for Outstanding Historical Documentary as well…However, I suspect “The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble” might be the fiercest competitor for Outstanding Music & Sound; it also earned nominations for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary and Outstanding Editing: Documentary.

Since I’ve already examined two of the categories in which “60 Minutes” has been nominated for “The Wounds of War,” it’s time to look at the rest, beginning with Outstanding Video Journalism: News, which I covered in ‘Charlottesville: Race and Terror’ tied for most nominations at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

“Charlottesville: Race and Terror” finally runs into one of the other entries with four nominations in the field for Outstanding Video Journalism: News, where it is competing against “60 Minutes: The Wounds of War,” which is about the Syrian Civil War.  That makes for an intriguing match-up.  The other nominees in this category include “BBC World News America: Fight For Raqqa – Darren Conway,” CNN’s “Global Warning: Arctic Melt,” and “Vox Borders,” none of which have other nominations.  Yeah, I think this contest is between Charlottesville and Syria.

“BBC World News America: Fight For Raqqa – Darren Conway” is the other nominee about the Syrian Civil War, but I would be surprised if it won.

The final category for which “The Wounds of War” earned a nomination is Best Story in a Newsmagazine, where it is competing against fellow “60 Minutes” segment “Investigating the Opioid Epidemic: The Whistleblower and Too Big to Prosecute” produced in cooperation with The Washington Post, the “Fault Lines” report “Heroin’s Children” from Al Jazeera International USA, another nominee about the opioid epidemic with two other nominations for Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report and Outstanding Editing: News, and two episodes of “Frontline,” “Battle for Iraq” and “Inside Yemen.”  The former also has a nomination for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story, while this is the only nomination for the latter.  Based on its total number of nominations, I think “The Wounds of War” is the favorite, but it is facing stiff competition for the trophy, particularly from “Heroin’s Children.”

Follow over the jump for the rest of the nominees covering the Syrian Civil War.
Two of the nominees for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story in a Newscast honor reports about the Syrian Civil War, “CBS News: Inside the Battle for Raqqa” and “CNN International: Fall of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.”  Joining them are “World News Tonight with David Muir and Nightline: The Rohingya” and two episodes of “VICE News Tonight, “Battle for Marawi,” which is about the fight against ISIS/Daesh in the Philippines, and “Libya,” in which the Sith Jihad plays a supporting role.  All of these are related, as even the Rohingya are being unfairly labeled as Islamic terrorists.  None of these have other nominations, so I have no idea how to handicap them.

Both the Syrian Civil War and the Rohingya appear as nominees for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story in a Newscast, which I already wrote about in Putin and Trump-Russia at the Emmy Awards.

ABC’s “Nightline” also had an episode about Vladimir Putin nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award, “Putin’s Power: A Journey Inside Russia,” which is being considered for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story in a Newscast…The other nominees for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story in a Newscast include “Battle for Raqqa” from BBC World News America, “Syria: Gasping for Life in Khan Sheikhoun” from CNN International, “Retaking Raqqa” from Nightline, and “The Unwanted” from ABC’s World News Tonight.  I have no idea which might win, but I can see there are lots of nominees about Syria.

I have changed my mind about which nominee I think will win, as “The Unwanted,” the other nominee examining the plight of the Rohingya, is also nominated for Best Story in a Newscast, while the other nominees for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story in a Newscast have no other nominations.

The “BBC World News America” report “The Escape From Raqqa” is the only nominee for Outstanding Investigative Report in a Newscast I didn’t mention in ‘Charlottesville: Race and Terror’ tied for most nominations at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards, the rest being “Charlottesville: Race and Terror,” “Anderson Cooper 360°: Kids for Sale,” “CBS This Morning: U.S. Air Force Academy Sexual Assault,” and “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer: Libya Slave Auction.”  Out of all of them, I think “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” has the best shot at winning.

I have one last category to recycle, from Coverage of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria nominated for News and Documentary Emmy Awards, which I repurposed for 14 nominations for 12 reports about Las Vegas Massacre and other mass shootings at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

The Washington Post…earned a News & Documentary Emmy nomination for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage for its coverage of the 2017 Hurricane Season…The [other] nominees for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage include CNN’s Worldwide Hurricane Coverage, so this category includes two nominees that covered the hurricane season.  The rest consist of ABC News: The Las Vegas Massacre[,]…CNN’s coverage of the Fall of Raqqa and the Manchester Concert Attack.  As I wrote, mass shootings, hurricanes, and Syria dominated the news, so they’re dominating the news nominations.

With this entry, I have one last topic to examine, the opioid crisis.  Stay tuned.

As I first noted in ‘Charlottesville: Race and Terror’ tied for most nominations at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards, “Mass shootings, hurricanes, and Syria dominated the news last year, so it’s no surprise they dominate the nominations and I plan on writing about all the nominees about them.”  I took care of hurricane coverage nominees already, so now it’s time for mass shootings.

I begin by being a good environmentalist and recycling what I wrote in Two nominees for Outstanding Nature Documentary both examine climate change where I mentioned “Tower.”

For their third nominated category, both “Chasing Coral” and “Yosemite” are competing for Outstanding Music & Sound along with the HBO Documentary Films “Cries From Syria” and “The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble” and the “Independent Lens” episode “Tower.”  The most formidable overall are “Cries from Syria,” which also has nominations for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary, Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Research, and “Tower,” about the first mass school shooting in U.S. history at the University of Texas, which earned a nomination for Outstanding Historical Documentary as well.

Joining “Tower” in competing for Outstanding Historical Documentary are Independent Lens episode “Birth of a Movement” and the Netflix documentaries “Cuba and the Cameraman,” “Let It Fall: Los Angeles: 1982-1992,” and “Blood On The Mountain.”  Other than “Tower,” the only other nominee in this category with a second nomination is “Let It Fall: Los Angeles: 1982-1992,” which has a nomination for Outstanding Research.  Based on that and my including it in The most honored political documentaries of 2017 examine crime, injustice, and the Syrian Civil War, I consider it to be the strongest competition to “Tower” for Outstanding Historical Documentary.  As for its chances to win its second nominated category, I’m recycling what I wrote: “I suspect ‘The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble’ might be the fiercest competitor for Outstanding Music & Sound; it also earned nominations for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary and Outstanding Editing: Documentary.”

To get a feel for the documentary and the incident it portrays, watch the trailer from PBS.

Combining archival footage with rotoscopic animation in a dynamic, never-before-seen way, TOWER reveals the action-packed, untold stories of the witnesses, heroes, and survivors of America’s first mass school shooting, at the University of Texas, 1966, when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others.

Speaking of the nominees for Outstanding Editing: Documentary, one of the two nominated episodes of Showtime’s “Active Shooter: America Under Fire” earned a nomination in this category for “Columbine, Colorado,” which is about the most infamous mass school shooting of the 20th Century.  Joining it and “The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble” are RYOT’s “Fear Us Women,” HBO Documentary Films’ “Solitary: Inside Red Onion State Prison,” and “Life, Animated.”  I’ve already called “Life, Animated” tough competition, as it is also nominated for Best Documentary and is competing against “The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble” for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary, where I consider “Life, Animated” to be the strongest contender for this award.

The other nominated episode of “Active Shooter: America Under Fire” is “Charleston, South Carolina,” which is competing for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary with the “Frontline” episode “Last Days of Solitary,” two HBO Documentary Films, “Abortion: Stories Women Tell” and “Unlocking the Cage,” and fellow Showtime documentary “Jackson.”  I am finding it difficult to handicap this category, as these are the only nominations for each fo these shows.  That written, my sympathies lie with “Unlocking the Cage,” which is about animal rights for chimpanzees, which echoes the themes of PETA attempts a science-fiction solution to a real-world issue and The ethics of orcas as entertainment.

As for “Active Shooter: America Under Fire,” watch its trailer from Showtime.

The traumatic events of infamous mass shootings and their aftermath.
…
Whether due to acts of terrorism, hate, or mental instability, mass shootings have become all too commonplace. Active Shooter: America Under Fire is a documentary series that examines this disturbing phenomenon from the points of view of victims, family members, emergency medical workers and first responders, who bravely risk their own lives in the face of grave danger. Each episode recounts a specific incident using archival footage and in-depth interviews to shine a spotlight on the traumatic events and their aftermath. The results are powerful, eye-opening, and hopefully change-inducing.

While I find all the above nominees to be deserving, they are not the reason why mass shootings became a top news topic of 2017.  That is because of the Las Vegas Massacre, the coverage of which earned eight nominations for eight entries.  Combined with the two nominations each for “Tower” and “Active Shooter: America Under Fire” and another nomination for the Attack at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, that’s a total of fourteen nominations for twelve news and documentary programs, making this the second most nominated news story this year next to the Syrian Civil War with 17 nominations for 11 nominees.  Follow over the jump for my discussion of the nominees covering the Las Vegas Massacre, the Sutherland Springs shooting, and the attack at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport

I begin my discussion of the nominated reports on the Las Vegas Massacre by being a good environmentalist and recycling what I wrote in Coverage of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria nominated for News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

The Washington Post…earned a News & Documentary Emmy nomination for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage for its coverage of the 2017 Hurricane Season…The nominees for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage include CNN’s Worldwide Hurricane Coverage, so this category includes two nominees that covered the hurricane season.  The rest consist of ABC News: The Las Vegas Massacre and CNN’s coverage of the Fall of Raqqa and the Manchester Concert Attack.  As I wrote, mass shootings, hurricanes, and Syria dominated the news, so they’re dominating the news nominations.
…
There is more coverage of Harvey nominated in the next category, Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in a Newscast, where The Weather Channel’s Live Coverage of Hurricane Harvey is nominated alongside “Charlottesville: Race and Terror,” “BBC World News: Fierce Fight for Mosul,” “CBS News: Las Vegas Massacre,” and “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt: Las Vegas Massacre.”
…
For my readers who are wondering about coverage of Hurricane Maria, Univision’s “Primer Impacto: Unidos en el Dolor: Huracán María en Puerto Rico (United in Pain: Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico)” and Univision’s “Aquí y Ahora: Un doble golpe (Double Impact)” both earned nominations for Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in Spanish.  Competing against them are another report from Univision’s Aquí y Ahora, “Terror en Las Vegas (Terror in Las Vegas)” (sometimes the news looks the same in both English and Spanish, even if it sounds different), and two about the Mexican earthquake, “CNN en Español: Terremoto en México (Mexico Earthquake),” and “Noticiero Telemundo: Terremoto en México (Earthquake in Mexico).”

In the first category, the two nominees that covered the Las Vegas Massacre may split the vote, so I think one of the other three will likely win.  In the second category, I’ve already written that “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” is the one I consider to be the favorite.  I failed to pick a favorite in the third category yesterday, so I’ll do it today by choosing “Aquí y Ahora: Un doble golpe (Double Impact)” — two disasters in one!

It turns out that I missed a nominee about Hurricane Harvey that is competing against two nominees covering the Las Vegas Massacre for Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in a Newsmagazine, where three episodes of “20/20” are nominated, “A Hostile Act: What Happened to Otto?” “City Underwater,” and “Las Vegas: Heartbreak and Heroes,” joined by the “60 Minutes” episode “Storming Room 135” and “On Assignment with Richard Engel” episode “Fall of Mosul.”  I think the “60 Minutes” episode “Storming Room 135” would be the favorite, as the three “20/20” episodes might split the vote.

For the next category, I will once again be a good environmentalist and recycle, this time from the tip jar to ‘Charlottesville: Race and Terror’ tied for most nominations at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

Also, four CNN segments were nominated for Outstanding Live Interview, “Jake Tapper and Kellyanne Conway” on “The Lead With Jake Tapper,” which took place in the aftermath of Charlottesville, two from “Anderson Cooper 360°,” “Anderson Cooper Interviews Janet Porter” and “Faces of Grief: Sutherland Springs Pastor & Heather Melton,” the latter of which is also about a mass shooting, and “Chris Cuomo Interviews Las Vegas Massacre Survivors” on “New Day.”  “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” provided the fifth nominee “Interview with Sarah Sanders.

The final nominee examining the Las Vegas Massacre is “The New York Times: 10 Minutes. 12 Gunfire Bursts. 30 Videos. Mapping the Las Vegas Massacre,” which earned a nomination for Outstanding New Approaches: Current News.  Joining it is another nominee about last year’s hurricane season that I missed the first time around, “Sin Luz: Life Without Power” by The Washington Post, plus two more nominees for video journalism from The New York Times, “Escaping Boko Haram” and “How 655,000 Rohingya Muslims Escaped,” and “From Migrants to Refugees: The New Plight of Central Americans” from Univision Noticias Digital.  The New York Times video provides a good summary of the story, so I’m embedding it.  Watch.

The shots began at 10:05pm. Twelve bursts of gunfire later, the police broke down Stephen Paddock’s door at the Mandalay Bay. The Times mapped 30 videos to draw perhaps the most complete picture to date of what happened.

I find that the dispassionate analysis makes the incident even more chilling.

One of the local news nominees covered a different mass shooting, which I mentioned in passing as part of Coverage of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria nominated for News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

The final nomination for coverage of last year’s hurricanes honors WJXT-TV’s Hurricane Damage (Jacksonville, FL) from Hurricane Irma, thus completing the trio of major storms that made landfall in the U.S.  Competing against it for Outstanding Regional News Story: Spot News is another nominee that covered severe weather, WLS-TV’s “ABC7 Eyewitness News at 4pm” (Chicago, IL) on “Deadly Tornadoes,” along with reports from WJZY-TV’s FOX46 10 p.m. & Digital Coverage (Charlotte, NC) on the Charlotte Protest, WPLG-TV’s “Local 10 News at 11:00” (Miami, FL) on the Attack at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (another mass shooting to cover), and KTAZ-TV’s “Noticiero Telemundo Arizona” (Phoenix, AZ) on Black Lives Matter Protest Crew Pepper Sprayed.

I had no idea which is likely to win and I still don’t.  That written, I close with Investigation underway after security footage released of airport attack from WPLG Local 10.

The moment that gunman Esteban Santiago opened fire on travelers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Friday was captured by security cameras.

I noted in ‘Charlottesville: Race and Terror’ tied for most nominations at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards that “Mass shootings, hurricanes, and Syria dominated the news last year, so it’s no surprise they dominate the nominations and I plan on writing about all the nominees about them.”

I begin with the following video from the Washington Post, which earned a News & Documentary Emmy nomination for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage for its coverage of the 2017 Hurricane Season.  Watch When the roads turned to rivers: Texas in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

“People are more resilient than you think,” says a Houston resident. Watch this Washington Post original documentary on how Southeast Texas is dealing with the devastation Harvey left behind.

The other nominees for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage include CNN’s Worldwide Hurricane Coverage, so this category includes two nominees that covered the hurricane season.  The rest consist of ABC News: The Las Vegas Massacre and CNN’s coverage of the Fall of Raqqa and the Manchester Concert Attack.  As I wrote, mass shootings, hurricanes, and Syria dominated the news, so they’re dominating the news nominations.  Since I already embedded a video from The Washington Post, I’m embedding one from CNN: What Hurricane Harvey left behind.

A week after Hurricane Harvey made landfall, CNN drove from Corpus Christi to four other cities to see the destruction it left behind.

There is more coverage of Harvey nominated in the next category, Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in a Newscast, where The Weather Channel’s Live Coverage of Hurricane Harvey is nominated alongside “Charlottesville: Race and Terror,” “BBC World News: Fierce Fight for Mosul,” “CBS News: Las Vegas Massacre,” and “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt: Las Vegas Massacre.”  I’m pretty sure that “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” has the inside track, but that won’t stop me from embedding Incredible: Dog Rescued on Roof during Harvey from The Weather Channel.

Follow over the jump for coverage of Hurricanes Maria and Irma.
For my readers who are wondering about coverage of Hurricane Maria, “Sin Luz: Life Without Power” by The Washington Post earned a nomination for Outstanding New Approaches: Current News.  Unfortunately, this video is on Vimeo, not YouTube, so I can’t embed it here.  Joining it are “The New York Times: 10 Minutes. 12 Gunfire Bursts. 30 Videos. Mapping the Las Vegas Massacre” plus two more nominees for video journalism from The New York Times, “Escaping Boko Haram” and “How 655,000 Rohingya Muslims Escaped,” and “From Migrants to Refugees: The New Plight of Central Americans” from Univision Noticias Digital.

Univision’s “Primer Impacto: Unidos en el Dolor: Huracán María en Puerto Rico (United in Pain: Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico)” and Univision’s “Aquí y Ahora: Un doble golpe (Double Impact)” both earned nominations for Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in Spanish.  Competing against them are another report from Univision’s Aquí y Ahora, “Terror en Las Vegas (Terror in Las Vegas)” (sometimes the news looks the same in both English and Spanish, even if it sounds different), and two about the Mexican earthquake, “CNN en Español: Terremoto en México (Mexico Earthquake),” and “Noticiero Telemundo: Terremoto en México (Earthquake in Mexico).”  Since it covers both Hurricane Maria and the earthquake, I am sharing Aquí y Ahora: Doble Golpe | Promo | Univision.

Next, Las primeras imágenes que se conocen de los daños causados por el huracán María en Puerto Rico (The first images that are known of the damages caused by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico).

El periodista de Univision Galo Arellano muestra desde San Juan que algunas, construidas con madera, sufrieron daños en los techos y paredes. (Univision reporter Galo Arellano shows from San Juan that some [structures], built with wood, suffered damage to the ceilings and walls.)

That’s a different perspective than I’ve taken on the disaster, as I’ve looked at it through the lenses of Puerto Rico Statehood and last year’s flu epidemic.  It’s about time I examined the damage itself, instead of its secondary effects.

The final nomination for coverage of last year’s hurricanes honors WJXT-TV’s Hurricane Damage (Jacksonville, FL) from Hurricane Irma, thus completing the trio of major storms that made landfall in the U.S.  Competing against it for Outstanding Regional News Story: Spot News is another nominee that covered severe weather, WLS-TV’s “ABC7 Eyewitness News at 4pm” (Chicago, IL) on “Deadly Tornadoes,” along with reports from WJZY-TV’s FOX46 10 p.m. & Digital Coverage (Charlotte, NC) on the Charlotte Protest, WPLG-TV’s “Local 10 News at 11:00” (Miami, FL) on the Attack at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (another mass shooting to cover), and KTAZ-TV’s “Noticiero Telemundo Arizona” (Phoenix, AZ) on Black Lives Matter Protest Crew Pepper Sprayed.  Since today’s entry is about hurricanes, I conclude today’s entry with WJXT Irma Montage.

I mentioned that I would write about last August’s Weimar moment in Charlottesville in Putin and Trump-Russia at the Emmy Awards last month.  I then forgot about it until I reposted the entry at Booman Tribune and noticed that I had written “‘The Wounds of War’ and ‘Cries from Syria’ are probably the toughest competition, as both have four nominations each, tied for the most nominations for any single entry with ‘Charlottesville: Race and Terror’ by Vice News Tonight” and “I’ll be looking more at this category when I examine the nominees about Syria and Charlottesville.”  It’s time to follow through with an examination of “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” by Vice News Tonight, which is nominated for Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in a Newscast, Best Story in a Newscast, Outstanding Video Journalism: News, and Outstanding Editing: News.

Competing against “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” for Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in a Newscast were “BBC World
News: Fierce Fight for Mosul,” “CBS News: Las Vegas Massacre,” “Live Coverage of Hurricane Harvey” by The Weather Channel, and “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt: Las Vegas Massacre.”  Mass shootings, hurricanes, and Syria dominated the news last year, so it’s no surprise they dominate the nominations and I plan on writing about all the nominees about them.  However, this is the only category in which any of the four competing entries earned a nomination, so I think Vice News Tonight did a better job of producing “Charlottesville: Race and Terror.”

On the other hand, the nominees for Best Story in a Newscast all had nominations in another category.  “Anderson Cooper 360°: Kids for Sale,” “CBS This Morning: U.S. Air Force Academy Sexual Assault,” and “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer: Libya Slave Auction” are nominated for Outstanding Investigative Report in a Newscast, while “World News Tonight with David Muir and Nightline: The Unwanted” had a nomination for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story in a Newscast.  Still, none of them also had nominations outside of these two categories other than “Charlottesville: Race and Terror,” so I suspect it has the inside track.

“Charlottesville: Race and Terror” finally ran into one of the other entries with four nominations in the field for Outstanding Video Journalism: News, where it is competing against “60 Minutes: The Wounds of War,” which is about the Syrian Civil War.  That made for an intriguing match-up.  The other nominees in this category include “BBC World News America: Fight For Raqqa – Darren Conway,” CNN’s “Global Warning: Arctic Melt,” and “Vox Borders,” none of which had other nominations.  Yeah, I think this contest was between Charlottesville and Syria.

The competition for Outstanding Editing: News appeared just as stiff, as Al Jazeera International USA’s “Fault Lines: Heroin’s Children” had two other nominations for Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report and Best Story in a Newsmagazine.  The other nominees, “50 Years of 60 Minutes” and fellow “VICE News Tonight” reports “Battle for Marawi: On the Hunt for ISIS Militants” and “Libya: Intercepting Migrants,” only had nominations in this category.  My take was that the contest for this award is between Charlottesville and opiates/opioids.
The entire episode is on YouTube: Charlottesville: Race and Terror – VICE News Tonight on HBO.

On Saturday hundreds of white nationalists, alt-righters, and neo-Nazis traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia to participate in the “Unite the Right” rally. By Saturday evening three people were dead – one protester, and two police officers – and many more injured.

“VICE News Tonight” correspondent Elle Reeve went behind the scenes with white nationalist leaders, including Christopher Cantwell, Robert Ray, David Duke, and Matthew Heimbach — as well as counter-protesters. VICE News Tonight also spoke with residents of Charlottesville, members of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Charlottesville Police.

From the neo-Nazi protests at Emancipation Park to Cantwell’s hideaway outside of Virginia, “VICE News Tonight” provides viewers with exclusive, up close and personal access inside the unrest.

That’s a scary look at what a Weimar moment looks like in 21st Century U.S.A.

I made an easy prediction in ‘Chasing Coral’: awards and nominations and looking forward to next year’s Emmys 4 last December.

I expect I’ll be able to tell my students about “Chasing Coral” earning an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Nature Documentary next summer and its likely win in the fall.  I’m looking forward to that.

That happened, as “Chasing Coral” earned a nomination for Outstanding Nature Documentary at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards along with nominations in two other categories, Best Documentary and Outstanding Music & Sound.  It is competing with “Putin’s Revenge” on Frontline, “The Witness” from Independent Lens, “Life, Animated,” an Oscar nominee for Documentary Feature in 2017, and “My Love, Don’t Cross That River” from POV for Best Documentary.  Out of that field, I’m rooting for “Chasing Coral,” but “Life, Animated” is very tough competition.

That written, both “Chasing Coral” and “Last Men in Aleppo” have already won a prestigious award for documentaries, the Peabody Award.  Here is the award profile for “Chasing Coral.”

Climate change is often described as a slow-moving catastrophe, a serious yet distant threat. “Chasing Coral,” a Netflix documentary, upends that comfortable premise. As waters warm, coral reefs starve, with massive bleaching events occurring at record pace unseen beneath the waves. Approximately 90 percent of coral reefs may be lost over the coming decades. “Chasing Coral” dramatically illuminates this ongoing disaster, first immersing the audience in the gorgeous and diverse marine world that is the Great Barrier Reef, and then documenting–using underwater time-lapse cameras invented specifically for the project–how vast swaths of it die. The emotional impact is heightened by watching a team of passionate scientists and idealistic young assistants witness the bleaching event, which suggests nothing less than a kind of underwater holocaust. Somehow, in spite of the scope of the tragedy, the documentary nevertheless remains hopeful, calling for engagement and urging action. For bringing climate change and its deadly consequences into sharp and immediate focus, “Chasing Coral” wins a Peabody Award.

And now, director Jeff Orlowski’s acceptance speech.

This surprisingly emotional film expertly documents, through time-lapse underwater photographs, the effects of climate change on the rapid decimation of the world’s coral reefs, events known as coral bleaching that affected 29 percent of the shallow-water coral in the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 alone.

“A story that matters because the Earth matters” — indeed, it is.

Follow over the jump for the other nominees competing against “Chasing Coral” in the other two categories.

While I think that “Chasing Coral” is the favorite for Outstanding Nature Documentary, I also think its main competition for that award is the “Nature” episode “Yosemite,” which also has three nominations at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards and also examines the effects of climate change, this time on my favorite National Park.  Watch YOSEMITE on NATURE | Official Trailer | PBS.

The Sierra Nevada, a mountain range running about 400 miles along the eastern side of California and stretches into Nevada, is home to three national parks: Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Yosemite. This is a land of giants, whether speaking of trees soaring to nearly 300 feet, or massive stone monoliths far taller than any skyscraper. But the force that has given rise to the earth’s largest living trees and carved out the iconic natural landmarks of the Sierras is water. The role that water has played in the creation and evolution of Yosemite Valley cannot be overstated – feeding its numerous wild rivers and countless waterfalls, and making life in this stone wilderness possible. The second force, crucial to the Giant sequoias’ ability to reproduce, is fire. It is the delicate balance of these two elements, water and fire, that is vital to the continued existence of the wildlife and trees that inhabit the Sierras.

Despite the recent heavy rains and snowfall, scientists are finding that water is scarcer and the threat of fire is more likely as the area continues to experience rising temperatures upsetting that important balance. Geologists, ecologists, researchers and adventurers investigate how the changing climate is affecting Yosemite, one of America’s greatest wildernesses.

CBS This Morning has even more in Documentary explores how climate change is impacting Yosemite.

PBS’ “Nature” series will premiere “Yosemite,” a sublime look at one of our nation’s most stunning national parks. It’s also a sobering one, as the park’s ecosystem is threatened by climate change. Award-winning nature filmmaker Joseph Pontecorvo, who produced, wrote and served as a cinematographer, joins “CBS This Morning: Saturday” to discuss the filming process and the park’s future.

The camera work is indeed lovely and captures the beauty of Yosemite National Park, which is why I think “Yosemite” has a good chance to win Outstanding Cinematography: Documentary.  There, it faces another nominee for Outstanding Nature Documentary, “Ireland’s Wild Coast” for its second nomination.  This is my third choice of Outstanding Nature Documentary.  The other nominees in this category, fellow “Nature” episode “Naledi: One Little Elephant” and “Independent Lens” episode “SEED: The Untold Story,” only have the one nomination for nature documentary.

The other nominees for Outstanding Cinematography: Documentary include the “Frontline” episode “Mosul” and the “Nature” episodes “Forest of the Lynx” and “Spy in the Wild: A NATURE Mini-series.”  “Mosul” also has a nomination for Outstanding Short Documentary, but the two “Nature” episodes only have the nominations for cinematography.  Given the field, my comment last year that nature documentary nominees are well photographed at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards is still true.

For their third nominated category, both “Chasing Coral” and “Yosemite” are competing for Outstanding Music & Sound along with the HBO Documentary Films “Cries From Syria” and “The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble” and the “Independent Lens” episode “Tower.”  The most formidable overall are “Cries from Syria,” which also has nominations for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary, Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Research, and “Tower,” about the first mass school shooting in U.S. history at the University of Texas, which earned a nomination for Outstanding Historical Documentary as well.*  However, I suspect “The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble” might be the fiercest competitor for Outstanding Music & Sound; it also earned nominations for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary and Outstanding Editing: Documentary.  Still, I’m pleased “Chasing Coral” has this nomination, as it is the closest thing at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards to what I hoped it would get elsewhere, nominations for “Tell Me How Long” for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards and Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.

Last March, I predicted that “both ‘Jane’ and ‘Abacus’ will be eligible for News and Documentary Emmy Awards this fall, where they will be favored in their categories.”  I was right about “Jane,” which earned seven nominations two awards at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.  Now it’s time to observe that I was right about “Abacus” earning a nomination for Outstanding Business and Economic Documentary at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards.  Joining it are three other Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature or Best Documentary Short Subject, “Edith and Eddie,” “Heroin(e),’ and “Last Men in Aleppo,” all of which I have written about before.  Along with “Icarus” and “Strong Island,” that means that four of the five nominees for Best Documentary Feature and two of the five nominees for Best Documentary Short Subject have also been nominated for an Emmy.  Both the films and their fellow nominees should be impressed.

I begin my review of the nominees with what I wrote about “Abacus” late last year.

“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” has won four awards from the shows and programs I am using, including Best Political Documentary from the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.  The Guardian review explains why it belongs here.

Veteran documentary-maker Steve James (Hoop Dreams) is back with an engrossing story: the extraordinary fiasco of the Abacus bank prosecution. It is a tale of hypocrisy, judicial bullying and racism. Abacus was a small neighbourhood bank serving New York’s Chinese community, which discovered a crooked employee falsifying mortgage documents, duly reported the matter to the authorities, but then found itself prosecuted by a district attorney who had sniffed a post-2008 PR opportunity to collar some real live bankers.

“Model minority” or not, Asian-Americans experience systemic racism, too.

Watch Abacus: Small Enough to Jail – Trailer for a preview.

From acclaimed director Steve James (Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters, Life Itself), Academy Award® Nominee Abacus: Small Enough to Jail tells the incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The indictment and subsequent trial forces the Sung family to defend themselves – and their bank’s legacy in the Chinatown community – over the course of a five-year legal battle.

Competing against “Abacus” for Outstanding Business and Economic Documentary are “Farewell Ferris Wheel” and “Vegas Baby” from “America Reframed” on World, “The Bad Kids” from “Independent Lens” on PBS and “Saving Capitalism” on Netflix.  Of all of them, I think “Saving Capitalism” is the strongest competition for “Abacus,” as it won Best Political Documentary at the Coffee Party Entertainment Awards for movies.  Looks like my fellow directors and volunteers at Coffee Party USA were on to something when they voted for Robert Reich’s film, giving it its first nomination and award.

Follow over the jump for the rest of the double nominees.
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The two Oscar nominees for Documentary Short Subject, “Edith and Eddie” and “Heroin(e),” are competing against each other at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards for Outstanding Short Documentary.  Joining them are “Mosul” from “Frontline” on PBS, “Long Shot” on Netflix, and “The New York Times Op-Docs: I Have a Message for You.”  I’ll be a good environmentalist and recycle what I wrote about both “Edith and Eddie” and “Heroin(e)” from Politics and diversity among Oscar nominated short subjects.

Moving down the list from Indiewire, which is arranged by the critic’s grade, is “Heroin(e),” a film about the opioid crisis in West Virginia.  The critic at Indiewire found it to be the most imaginatively named of the nominees and appreciated its focus on women who are trying to help the addicts, a judge, a fire chief, and a volunteer at a religious charity.
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Finally, “Edith+Eddie” examines the life and love of the oldest interracial couple in America.  Despite the billing, it is more the broken elder care system and about how adult children use legal guardianships to control the assests of their elderly parents than about race.  It was also the lowest rated of the nominated short documentaries by the critic at Indiewire.

Here are their trailers, beginning with Edith+Eddie.

2018 Academy Award® nominee – Best Documentary Short. Edith and Eddie, ages 96 and 95, are America’s oldest interracial newlyweds. Their love story is disrupted by a family feud that threatens to tear the couple apart.

Now, Heroin(e) | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix.

In the face of the opioid epidemic in a West Virginia town, three women are giving their community a fighting chance.

This is not the only nominee about the opioid crisis.  “Heroin’s Children” from Al Jazeera International USA is competing in three categories, Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report, Best Story in a Newsmagazine, and Outstanding Editing: News, while “Investigating the Opioid Epidemic: The Whistleblower and Too Big to Prosecute” from “60 Minutes and the Washington Post” on CBS is competing against it for Best Story in a Newsmagazine.  I’ll do my best to look at both before the awards on October 1st.

The last Oscar nominee to earn an nomination at the News and Documentary Emmy nomination is “Last Men in Aleppo,” which is competing for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary.  Once again, I’ll be a good environmentalist and recycle an excerpt from Variety.

Unsurprisingly awarded the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Fayyad’s film should have no trouble parlaying its Park City heat into extensive further festival play and acclaim, as well as offers from top documentary-specific distributors. Multi-platform release strategies are likely, aiming to engage audiences wary of venturing to theaters for such a heart-sinking chronicle. That said, the cinema is where “Last Men in Aleppo” firmly belongs. Together with co-director and editor Steen Johannessen, Fayyad brings a rigorous sense of craft and shock-and-awe scale to the film’s impressions of destruction, without impeding its anxious, on-the-hoof spontaneity. Any viewers coming to this after seeing “The White Helmets,” Netflix’s commendable, Oscar-nominated short on the SCD, needn’t fear seeing the same film again at greater length: This is a less cleanly packaged project, patient and nuanced in developing its individual human subjects and emotional stakes.

If anything, the Netflix film could serve as a useful primer for “Last Men in Aleppo,” which assumes a fair bit of knowledge on the audience’s part regarding who the White Helmets are and the circumstances that require them.

Joining “Last Men in Aleppo” as nominees for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary are “Beware the Slenderman” and “Cries From Syria” from HBO, “National Bird” from “Independent Lens” on PBS, and fellow “POV” on PBS candidate “Almost Sunrise.”  “Cries from Syria” also earned nominations for Outstanding Writing, Outstanding Research, and Outstanding Music & Sound, so it has a better chance of winning a statuette than “Last Men in Aleppo.”  Both films are also among numerous nominees about the Syrian Civil War, which I promise to list later.  Right now, I have to go to work, so instead I’ll leave my readers with Last Men in Aleppo | POV | PBS, its official TV preview.

After five years of war in Syria, the remaining citizens of Aleppo are getting ready for a siege. Through the eyes of volunteer rescue workers called the White Helmets, Last Men in Aleppo allows viewers to experience the daily life, death, and struggle in the streets, where they are fighting for sanity in a city where war has become the norm. Winner, 2017 Sundance World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Documentary.

Stay tuned for more News and Documentary Emmy nominees.

This past July, I made a prediction about this year’s Emmys in a comment I left on Twelve Ham Sandwiches with Russian Dressing at Kunstler’s blog: “PBS…is likely to earn a News and Documentary Emmy nomination or two for ‘Putin’s Revenge’ on Frontline.”  My prediction came true, as “Putin’s Revenge” earned two News & Documentary Emmy Award nominations for Best Documentary and Outstanding Writing.  As I wrote in my original blog post, “I like sequels to award-winners.  It makes it easier to identify possible nominees, especially if the same creative teams are working on them.”

Competing against “Putin’s Revenge” for Best Documentary are “Chasing Coral,” another film I thought would earn an Emmy nomination, “The Witness” from Independent Lens, “Life, Animated,” an Oscar nominee for Documentary Feature in 2017, and “My Love, Don’t Cross That River” from POV.  Out of that field, I’m rooting for “Chasing Coral,” but “Life, Animated” is very tough competition.

“Putin’s Revenge” faces a less tough field for Outstanding Writing, “Alma” and “The Wounds of War” from 60 Minutes, fellow “Frontline” episode “The Divided States of America,” and “Cries from Syria,” which tied for fourth in my ranking of the most honored political documentaries of 2017.  Out of all these, “The Wounds of War” and “Cries from Syria” are probably the toughest competition, as both have four nominations each, tied for the most nominations for any single entry with “Charlottesville: Race and Terror” by Vice News Tonight.

Too bad “Putin’s Revenge” did not receive a nomination for Outstanding Research.  The program showed its work in INTRODUCING: The Putin Files | FRONTLINE Transparency Project.

Now, you can see what we’ve seen – hours of reporting – from everyone we’ve interviewed, on the record, at your fingertips. This is “The Putin Files” – the complete archive from the FRONTLINE’s documentary, “Putin’s Revenge” – part of FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project.

I’ll have more if “Putin’s Revenge” wins either or both awards.

Follow over the jump for more nominees about Putin and Trump-Russia from both the News & Documentary and Creative Arts/Primetime Emmy Awards.
ABC’s “Nightline” also had an episode about Vladimir Putin nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award, “Putin’s Power: A Journey Inside Russia,” which is being considered for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story in a Newscast.  Take a look at a clip from that episode, Spending 10 days inside Putin’s Russia: Part 1.

In Russia, where President Putin is power personified, “Nightline” met with opposition activists who participated in a national day of protest.

And this is the man Trump admires.  What a bad bromance!

The other nominees for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story in a Newscast include “Battle for Raqqa” from BBC World News America, “Syria: Gasping for Life in Khan Sheikhoun” from CNN International, “Retaking Raqqa” from Nightline, and “The Unwanted” from ABC’s World News Tonight.  I have no idea which might win, but I can see there are lots of nominees about Syria.  I plan on writing about them in a future installment.

The final nominee from the News & Documentary Emmy Awards is “Special Counsel Appointed to Oversee Trump-Russia Investigation” from “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, which contending for Outstanding News Discussion & Analysis.  I found New Questions On Donald Trump-Russia Special Counsel as an example clip.

Sari Horwitz, Justice Department reporter for The Washington Post, talks with Rachel Maddow about new questions raised by the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel to the Trump-Russia investigation.

This is the sole nomination for “The Rachel Maddow Show.”  Competing against it for Outstanding News Discussion & Analysis are “All In America: Chicago” from “All In with Chris Hayes” on MSNBC, “NFL Town Hall: Patriotism, The Players and The President” from “Anderson Cooper 360^o” on CNN, “The Morning After Charlottesville” from “State of the Union with Jake Tapper” on CNN, and “High Alert: North Korea” from “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC.  I’ll be looking more at this category when I examine the nominees about Syria and Charlottesville.

That takes care of the nominees examining Putin and Trump-Russia at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, but there was one nominee at the Creative Arts/Primetime Emmys on the subject, the theme music to “The Putin Interviews” by Jeff Beal, who won the only Emmy for “House of Cards” last year for Music Composition (Dramatic Score).  I’ll post that video in the tip jar.

I’m making a small down payment on the promise I made at the end of Diversity a winner at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards to blog  more about the Emmys by following up on ‘Born This Way,’ ‘Deadliest Catch,’ and ‘United Shades of America’ — society and nature in reality TV programs at the Emmy Awards” at Crazy Eddie’s Motie News.

The returning winner for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program, as I mentioned above, is “United Shades of America With W. Kamau Bell,” which  also earned nominations for Outstanding Host For A Reality Program and Outstanding Picture Editing For An Unstructured Reality Program.  I watched two episodes of this show the weekends after Anthony Bourdain died.  I found it fascinating, and not just for its humorous take on race and race relations.  I had no idea Bell was three-time Hugo winner N.K. Jemisin‘s cousin until I saw Bell interview her on his show.  I also saw little distinction between “United Shades of America” and “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” even though they are in different categories; the line between an informational nonfiction show and a reality show must be very fine.  I’m sure it also helps that they are promoted in different categories so that they don’t step on each other at awards time.
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Competing against “Born This Way,” “United Shades of America,” “Deadliest Catch,” and “Naked And Afraid” for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program are “Intervention” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked.”  I doubt either of the latter two have much a chance at winning this category, although both examine serious social issues with the last doing so obliquely and light-heartedly.  Instead, I’m rooting for “United Shades of America” to win again.

I called this outcome, as Deadline reported that “United Shades of America” won Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program a second year in a row.  Congratulations!

Even in winning, “United Shades of America” couldn’t escape the shadow of “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, as Deadline blogged: “A shoutout to fellow CNNer Bourdain from senior show producer Geraldine Porras: ‘This award is dedicated to the memory of Anthony Bourdain, who continues to inspire us every day.'”

While W. Kamau Bell lost Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program to RuPaul Charles, which I expected, “United Shades of America” won Outstanding Picture Editing For An Unstructured Reality Program for the first time, which I didn’t.

“Life Below Zero” did not earn a nomination for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program, but it did garner nominations for Outstanding Cinematography For A Reality Program and Outstanding Picture Editing For An Unstructured Reality Program.  It is competing against both “Born This Way” and “Deadliest Catch” in the first category along with competition reality shows “The Amazing Race” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and structured reality show “Queer Eye.”  As I mentioned above, “Born This Way” won Outstanding Cinematography For A Reality Program last year, so I expect it will win again.  In the second category, it faces all three of “Born This Way,” “United Shades of America,” and “Deadliest Catch” along with “RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked.”  Here, “Life Below Zero” holds the trophy and would be my choice to win.

However, “Life Below Zero” did not go away empty-handed, as it won Outstanding Cinematography For A Reality Program.  Congratulations!  In the case of both “United Shades of America” and “Life Below Zero,” I was glad to be wrong.  On the other hand, “Born This Way” did, as it not only lost Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program and Outstanding Picture Editing For An Unstructured Reality Program and Outstanding Casting For A Reality Program to “United Shades of America” and Outstanding Cinematography For A Reality Program to “Life Below Zero”, it lost its fourth nomination, Outstanding Casting For A Reality Program, to “Queer Eye.”  In contrast, the latter had a good night, also winning Outstanding a Structured Reality Program and Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured or Competition Reality Program for a total of three.  Congratulations to “Queer Eye!”

I might have more to say about reality shows after the Primetime Emmy Awards, when Outstanding Reality-Competition Program will be awarded, especially if “RuPaul’s Drag Race” wins.  In the meantime, stay tuned for me following up on ‘Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown’ earns seven posthumous Emmy nominations; the series won six of them!