The Globe and Mail's acclaimed Talking to the Taliban series took home another honour Monday night, earning an Emmy award at a New York ceremony.
At the 30th-annual News and Documentary Emmys, held one day after the main-stream event, the Globe multimedia series was named the winner in the New Approaches to News and Documentary category.
"Winning an Emmy is not only a new honour for the Globe, and one that speaks to our emerging role as a multimedia organization, it speaks to the world-class journalism that everyone at the Globe aspires to," Globe and Mail editor-in-chief John Stackhouse said. "I hope it also reminds Canadians of the need for the most basic form of journalism - the on-the-ground interview - when we're trying to understand our role in the world."
The series was built upon individually taped interviews with 42 Taliban foot soldiers, each of whom were asked a set of standardized questions. Long-time Globe and Mail Afghanistan correspondent Graeme Smith equipped a local Afghan researcher with a camera and the lists, and used the responses to build the multimedia series online, as well as the print articles.
Talking to the Taliban beat out two projects each from the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as one from Reuters, for the Emmy.
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Smith told the crowd he was honoured to work in an era where a Canadian newspaper can compete with the best of the world's broadcast news organizations and investigative units.
Talking to the Taliban has also won an Online Journalism Award for best investigative piece by a large website, and a coveted Editor & Publisher "Eppy" online journalism award. It won a National Newspaper Award earlier this year as the country's best multimedia feature. Mr. Smith also took home an NNA for international reporting.
After the Emmy win, Mr. Stackhouse praised the work of staff involved in its development, including the Globe multimedia team led by Jayson Taylor and Christopher Manza; foreign editor Stephen Northfield; and the Afghan journalists who worked with Mr. Smith in developing the series.
"This particular honour is a tribute to an extraordinary team of journalists - anchored of course by our outstanding foreign correspondent Graeme Smith, but not without the essential work of the brave Afghan journalists who carried out the interviews," he said.
Mr. Smith is currently on leave from The Globe and Mail to write a book about Afghanistan.