Over 150 celebrities call on Emmys to rescind nomination of Gaza journalist
Gaza (Quds News Network)- More than 150 entertainment industry leaders have urged the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) to rescind its Emmy nomination of Palestinian journalist from Gaza Bisan Owda for the 2024 News & Documentary category.
In an open letter released by the entertainment industry nonprofit organization, Creative Community For Peace (CCFP), over 150 celebrities and entertainment industry professionals called on NATAS to rescind the nominations over claims that Owda has ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The letter, first revealed by Puck, comes in response to Owda’s nomination for the documentary “It’s Bisan From Gaza and I’m Still Alive.”
The eight-minute report was filmed and narrated by Owda and produced by AJ+, the digital publisher of Al Jazeera. It showed what life was like for Owda and for Gazans she interviewed following the Israeli genocide war.
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.
Among the signatories who signed Monday’s open letter about the Emmy nomination were music and film executives and performers like Selma Blair and Debra Messing.
The letter alleged Owda was affiliated with the PFLP, claiming there are reports and photographs indicating that Owda spoke at group events between 2014 and 2018.
The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist Palestinian resistance group, which was listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in 1997 by the US State Department.
The letter claimed that the nomination was deeply troubling “given the creator’s history of promoting dangerous falsehoods, spreading antisemitism and condoning violence.”
However, Adam Sharp, the president and chief executive of the academy, defended the Emmy nomination on Tuesday in a response to the letter, saying that the nominees had been selected by “two successive panels of independent judges, including senior editorial leadership from each significant U.S. broadcast news network.”
He added that the academy had not found evidence that Owda was currently affiliated with the Palestinian group.
“It was selected for nomination from among more than 50 submissions in one of the year’s most competitive categories,” Sharp said.
“NATAS is aware of reports, cited in your letter.. NATAS been unable to corroborate these reports, nor has it been able, to date, to surface any evidence of more contemporary or active involvement by Owda with the PFLP organization.”
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, according to The New York Times.
Owda, 25, has been reporting daily from Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli genocide war, which has now stretched into its eleventh month and killed more than 40,000 Palestinians.
Her widely shared videos put a human face on the realities of daily life in Gaza and showed the world what Palestinians are doing to survive as Israel’s severe restrictions on the delivery of food, water, fuel and aid supplies into the war-battered enclave have created a humanitarian crisis.
