APTN nominated for International Emmy

International video news agency Associated Press Television News (APTN) has been nominated for the prestigious International Emmy Award for its coverage of the Beslan school siege.
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will present its Breaking News and Continuing News Coverage Awards - dubbed the Emmys - in New York on September 19 2005.
Sandy MacIntyre, APTN's News Director, said: "In television news we often say you make your own luck, but what we really mean by that is you need to work hard to be in the right place at the right time. Dima Kozlov, the APTN cameraman who shot the footage, did exactly that. He passed himself off as a local who lived in an apartment block overlooking the scene, he ingratiated himself with a family and stayed with them until something happened. When the chaos ensued he remained calm under pressure and produced the harrowing, iconic images which, when people think back to Beslan, they will always see in their mind's eye."
When news reached APTN's Senior Producer in Moscow of the Beslan crisis, a team of four APTN producers and cameramen was scrambled to North Ossetia. A chartered aircraft was organised to send a satellite up-link, so the scene in Beslan could be relayed live to broadcasters around the globe. It is estimated that more than a billion viewers worldwide relied on the APTN signal.
An APTN cameraman was dispatched to hide inside an apartment block overlooking the school. Hence APTN had the only cameraman to capture the moment when the siege ended. From his rooftop vantage point he kept rolling as semi-naked children ran from the gymnasium to the echo of gunfire. With the hostage takers and special forces still locked in battle; he raced to the street to film the flight to freedom of the traumatised and injured victims.
The horrific events, in which over 330 people including 31 hostage-takers died, were delivered live and as-live to broadcasters around the world on APTN’s Global Video Wire and on the breaking news service, APTN Direct.
Every national broadcaster in Britain and those in countless other countries around the world led their news bulletins with APTN’s pictures.
However, the live coverage of the incident by many broadcasters including the BBC sparked a controversy over such coverage of sensitive events, and BBC guidelines have been altered by a directive calling for a delay during the broadcasting of live "sensitive and challenging events."
(GB/SP)