COVERAGE OF SYRIA, CATALAN REFERENDUM AND GERMAN ELECTIONS AMONG RT’S 17 NODS AT NEW YORK FESTIVALS

MOSCOW, 12 FEBRUARY, 2018 – RT has secured 17 finalist spots – more than CNN, BBC or Sky News – at the prestigious New York Festivals. Among the finalists are RT’s coverage of the Catalonia referendum for independence, the elections in France and Germany, and the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia, as well as a documentary about the war in Syria, and several other of the network’s projects.

In the “Best Coverage of Breaking News” category, RT’s reporting on the Catalonia referendum for independence will compete for the award, while RT’s special coverage of the parliamentary elections in Germany will compete in the “Best Coverage of Continuing News Story” category.

RT long-form features detailing the suffering of children in Syria, the social caste system in India, and a Gabon movement to protect its fish stocks are finalists in the “Community Portraits,” “Cultural Issues” and “Environment & Ecology” documentary categories respectively.

RT’s exclusive coverage of the final match of the 2017 Confederations Cup in St. Petersburg is a finalist in the “Best Sports Newscast” category. RT presenter Neil Harvey and famous former British footballer Stan Collymore provided in-depth commentary on the match between Germany and Chile from a special studio on St. Petersburg’s Palace Square. RT’s promo for the Confederations Cup was also nominated in the “Special Effects: Promotion” category.

An episode of RT America’s “On Contact” with Pulitzer-prize winning author Chris Hedges will compete in three categories: “Best Interview,” “Best Investigative Report,” and “Human Interest.” The episode details America’s growing problem of drug abuse. In 2017, Hedges became an Emmy finalist for Outstanding Information Talk Show Host.

The series of promo videos for RT’s international #1917LIVE project, a large-scale historical Twitter re-enactment of the Russian Revolution created to mark the event’s 100-year anniversary, will compete in the category “Cinematography,” while the project itself will compete for the “Digital Special Event” prize.

Rounding off the nominations are a promo for RT Spanish’s “Cocina política” (Political cuisine), a series of promos for RT Spanish correspondents Aliana Nieves, Julia Dominzain, and Rubén Carcellé, the promo for RT’s special coverage of the French election, the promo for Worlds Apart with Oksana Boiko, and a promotion of RT’s social media accounts.

RT is the only Russian television network to be a five-time Emmy finalist and a multiple winner of the New York Festivals. In 2013, Julian Assange’s program on RT took home gold, and in 2014 the documentary film ‘Blood and Honor’ pipped CNN’s entry to the prize. In 2016, RT was honored in four categories, and in 2017, a series of special reports by RT about war-torn Libya and the documentary film “H2wOe” about the water-shortage crisis in India both took home gold.