Star reporter wins Emmy for investigative journalism

By Tamara Baluja

Ten University of British Columbia journalism students, including Toronto Star's Allison Cross, have won an Emmy Award for outstanding investigative journalism for their documentary Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground.

Students from UBC's Masters in Journalism program produced the film on dumping electronic waste in developing countries including Ghana, India and China. The film aired on the PBS documentary show Frontline in 2009.

Cross, one of the students who worked on the film, was at the awards ceremony in New York on Monday, taking a short break from her work at the Toronto Star. Two weeks ago she  joined the Star as one of the incoming one-year reporting interns.

Cross spent the past year chasing breaking news and reporting from Parliament Hill at Canwest News Service in Ottawa. Before that she was an intern at the Vancouver Sun and a community news reporter and photographer at the Nanaimo Daily News.

Cross and her colleagues were also nominated in the category of outstanding research.

On hearing about the group's nomination, Cross said she was just shocked.

"Most journalists work their entire careers for this kind of honour," she wrote on her blog. "The nominations have received quite a bit of attention, seeing as it's the first time Canadian journalism students have ever been nominated for an Emmy."

Tamara Baluja is doing her second stint in the Radio Room and has previously worked at The Province in Vancouver and CFRB 1010.

Comments

[Fabiola]

Way to go, Allison! All current UBC J-school students are both blown away and inspired by your success.