Ukrainian producer Viktoria Butenko is nominated for an Emmy, the Oscar of the television industry.
She was shortlisted for the 36th annual award in the field of news and documentaries, nominated by America's CNN television station for the report “Ukraine: Shooting in Independence Square.”
The winner will be announced on Sept. 28 in
the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.
The producer says that if she wins, the honors
will be shared with two other producers and a team of journalists from CNN. “I
was nominated for the award along with a rather big CNN team who worked on this
report,” she says.
The nomination took her by surprise.
CNN’s “Ukraine: Shooting in Independence
Square” was nominated in the category “Outstanding Live Coverage of a Current
News Story-Long-Form.”
The CNN
report will compete with other nine projects in the category. Three out
of these 10 shortlisted reports touch upon events in Ukraine in 2014, when
popular protests ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia stole Crimea and
started its war in eastern Ukraine.
The report describes the events of Feb. 20,
2014, the most tragic day of the EuroMaidan Revolution. Before Yanukovych fled
power, at least 100 demonstrators had been killed and many more injured. The
dead included 11 law enforcement officers.
“It’s very hard work,” Butenko said.
“Such stuff leaves no one indifferent.”
She wants to win, saying that “deep in my
soul I hope to get the prize,” even though she thinks her best work lies ahead.
Butenko has been working as a journalist for
12 years. She cooperated with the Los Angeles Times, NBC, BBC, Al Jazeera
International, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph and other international
media.
She is helping Russian journalist Sergey Loyko
to write a book about the defense of the Donetsk airport against Russia-backed
militants, whiche ended in the retreat by Ukrainian soldiers in January.
Loyko covered some of the fighting and is
writing a novel based on those events. Butenko is supplying the author with
facts and background and continues to work for CNN as a producer.
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected]
