Awards, People

Journalism alumni, lecturers up for Emmy awards

By Public Affairs

The UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism will be well represented at this year’s News and Documentary Emmy Awards, with six alumni and several lecturers nominated for more than a dozen awards.

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Tommy Nguyen, part of UC Berkeley’s Class of 2005, is up for three awards for his work as a video journalist and producer on NBC Dateline’sA Bronx Tale.” Nguyen was nominated for outstanding video journalism, best report in a news magazine, and outstanding feature in a news magazine. “A Bronx Tale” relates the story of a man who proved his innocence after nearly two decades in prison for murder.

While completing his master’s degree at the Journalism School, Nguyen also wrote, produced and edited Boom Town, Vietnam – a 2005 film series that won a student Emmy.

Nguyen’s classmate Jonathan Richard Jones, who also graduated in 2005, is up for two awards – alongside journalism lecturer T. Christian Miller – for Firestone and the Warlord, a collaboration between ProPublica and Frontline. The story is a groundbreaking investigation into the role of the American corporation Firestone in Liberia’s brutal civil war. Jones and Miller are nominated both for outstanding research and outstanding long-form investigative journalism.

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A still from “Notes on Blindness,” a NY Times op-doc series produced by J School grad Jason Spingarn-Koff

Jason Spingarn-Koff, who graduated with the Class of 2001, has been nominated in the “new approaches: arts, lifestyle, culture category,” for work as executive producer on Notes on Blindness, a New York Times Op-Doc film series following one man’s social and emotional experience of going blind. Spingarn-Koff took home an Emmy last year.

Daffodil Altan of the Class of 2004 is also up for new approaches award, in the current news category, for her reporting work on the Center for Investigative Reporting project “The Box: Teens in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Jails, Prisons and Juvenile Halls.”

Bret Sigler, a 2003 graduate, has been nominated for the outstanding editing award for his “Go or No Go: The Challenger Legacy,” a New York Times report revisiting the 1986 Challenger tragedy. And Sweta Vohra of the Class of 2010 is up for outstanding coverage of breaking news in a news magazine, for her work producing “Ferguson: City Under Siege,” on Al Jazeera America’s weekly investigative program Fault Lines.

The list of Emmy nominees also includes journalism lecturers and former lecturers, including Josh Williams, Shan Carter, Kevin Quealy and Sharon Tiller.

“It brings a thrilling sense of pride when students and faculty receive awards for good work,” said Joan Bieder, associate dean and professor at the Graduate School of Journalism.

The awards will be presented Sept. 28 in a ceremony at Lincoln Center in New York City.