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Description of documentary from the program.
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Washington, D.C., September 20, 2005 - The National Security
Archive won the 2005 Emmy Award for outstanding achievement in news
and documentary research, presented by the National Television Academy
at the 26th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony in
New York City last night.
The Emmy recognized the Archive for its work on the documentary
"Declassified: Nixon in China," produced by ABC News Productions
for the Discovery Times Channel, which premiered the show on December
21, 2004.
The program for the Emmy Awards ceremony described the show's nomination
as follows: "President Nixon's historic 1972 trip to China
was one of the greatest diplomatic coups in history. This heavily-researched
documentary reveals an unknown story behind the one most journalists
and historians think they know. To tell it, the producers had to
find, sift, evaluate and codify thousands of declassified documents,
both from the U.S. government and the secretive Chinese government
too. Working in cooperation with the National Security Archive,
the program's researchers brought dry government files to life,
revealing details that would have rattled the world at the time
- including the United States' provision to China of military intelligence
and an unspoken agreement on Taiwan."
Listed personally on the award were Archive executive director
Tom Blanton, independent film researcher Polly Pettit, and the show's
producer, Kathleen Toner of ABC News Productions. The lead researcher
for the Archive on the show was senior analyst Dr. William Burr,
author of The Kissinger Transcripts (New York: The New Press, 1999)
and editor of a forthcoming comprehensive collection of Kissinger
memoranda of conversations (to be published by ProQuest). Dr. Burr
was present at the New York ceremony to accept the award. Also contributing
significantly to the Archive's research efforts were Cornell University
professor Dr. Chen Jian (who provided extraordinary Chinese source
material), and Archive research assistant Rachel Bradsell.
Archive senior analyst Peter Kornbluh, who writes the "Los
Desclasificados" column for the Santiago, Chile newspaper Diario
Siete, originally proposed the idea for a television documentary
series called "Declassified"; and Archive director Blanton
proposed the idea and treatment of the Nixon in China show in a
June 3, 2004 meeting with ABC News Productions and Discovery Times
Channel executives.
Vivian Schiller, the CEO of Discovery Times Channel and the Senior
Vice President for Television and Video of the New York Times Company,
green-lighted the production and oversaw its development together
with Discovery Times executive Bill Smee. The ABC News Productions
team, in addition to the show's producer Kathleen Toner, included
executive producer Pete Simmons and CEO Lisa Zeff.
The 2005 Emmy is the third major journalism award won or shared
by the National Security Archive. In April 2000, the Archive won
the George Polk Award for "piercing self-serving veils of government
secrecy, guiding journalists in search of the truth, and informing
us all." In 1998, the George Foster Peabody Award in Broadcast
Journalism to the landmark 24-hour documentary series "Cold
War" produced by CNN and Jeremy Isaacs Productions specifically
recognized the Archive's research work for the series, remarking
that "each hour is rife with new information, much of it only
recently made available under the Freedom of Information Act in
America…."
The Archive's film unit has provided research, production and other
media services to network news programs and documentary film makers
from around the world, including CNN, BBC, NHK, the History Channel,
PBS Frontline, ABC, and "60 Minutes" at CBS. Film and
TV news credits include "JFK and Castro: The Secret History,"
for Discovery Times Channel, which was based on an article by Peter
Kornbluh and used Kornbluh as Consulting Producer on the film; "Bay
of Pigs Declassified" for the History Channel, based on an
Archive book by the same name edited by Kornbluh; "High Crimes
and Misdemeanors" for PBS Frontline on the Iran-contra scandal;
"The Cuban Missile Crisis" for Peter Jennings and ABC
News; and "Kissinger v. Schneider" for 60 Minutes.
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