28 May 2026

BBC News was among the big winners at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards in New York on Wednesday.

It was successful in the outstanding continuing coverage [short form] category for its reports and live updates around last year's devastating earthquake in Myanmar, which killed thousands of people and injured many more.

The coverage, seen around the world by millions on TV and online, was in a category which also included CNN's reports inside Iran and Gaza, as well as Scripps News's reporting of conflict in Haiti.

The BBC's Yogita Limaye was the first foreign journalist to enter Myanmar - undercover with colleagues - after the 7.7 magnitude tremor struck, reaching as far as Thailand, China and India.

Accepting the award on behalf of BBC News, senior executive producer Paul Danahar noted how the country's government had "shut it off to the world" following the earthquake.

He praised his team for "going in anyway" to the city of Mandalay at great personal risk.

"They risked arrest, beatings and potential jail to tell a story to the world," he said.

He added: "This was real public service journalism. It was a story that the world doesn't tell very often.

"I'm really proud of the BBC for funding it."

NBC News reporter Hallie Jackson presented the award, stressing how all of the nominees in the category had "devoted countless hours and effort to making sure that we keep telling these stories".

"There's an art to this," she said. "To sit across from a powerful person and to hold them to account, or to bring to bear expertise and experience that puts events into context, it is not easy - even though our nominees make it look that way."

ABC News and National Geographic were among the other winners on night one of the awards at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P Rose Hall.

The Emmy Awards - or Emmys as they are known - are a raft of separate ceremonies marking different achievements within the TV industry.

The news leg of the award series, presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, honours the best in US news and documentary programming over the past 12 months.