Award name: 16 The David A Andelman and Pamela Title Award

“The Price of Glory” is enterprise reporting at its best from three countries: Josh Fine and team reported from Qatar and Doha’s labor camps building new facilities for the 2022 World Cup; from Bulgaria where an Olympic weightlifting team was purchased wholesale; and followed coffins of migrant construction workers home to Nepal. A Qatar government official is visibly shocked the HBO team got access to labor camps, claims hundreds of 2022 World Cup worker deaths are “normal,” then walks out of an interview. This feature spotlights abusive conditions, needless worker deaths and the immense wealth that covers it up.

“Outlawed in Pakistan” shows how and why it is nearly impossible for rape victims to get justice in Pakistan. This compelling and beautifully filmed Frontline documentary follows 13-year-old Kainat and her family over a period of years as she tries—and fails—to bring to justice the men who allegedly gang-raped her. In the process, the reporters spotlight conditions for women, abuses under Islamic law and serious police failings. Frontline and the filmmakers give the full picture of what a nightmare it is to bring a rape case in Pakistan.

Najibullah Quraishi’s reporting in Opium Brides stood out for its exploration of a dangerous, hidden world to reveal a human tragedy: young Afghan girls traded by their opium poppy growing families to pay debts to international drug lords. The subject matter is intrinsically important, highlighting the plight of Afghan farming families caught between drug traffickers who finance their crops and government officials bent on poppy eradication. But what set the entry apart was the way it ventured into the remote Afghan countryside to show the plight of individual families and their children, as they weighed up the demands of the traffickers and then succumbed to them. Brave, beautifully shot and paced, this entry was sensitive in its handling of a tragic human dilemma and harrowing in its impact.

Every 90 seconds somewhere in the world a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth; 80% of these deaths are preventable. The program focused on nations with the worst history and how the powerful drive of women is bringing hope and help. The team traveled from Afghanistan to Sierra Leone, Bangladesh and elsewhere, filming the efforts of NGOs and doctors to train volunteers to use cell phones to communicate with doctors during pregnancies and to deliver babies hygienically in primitive homes. It cited how well-known model Christy Turlington, who almost died in childbirth in the U.S., used her fame to make a documentary to raise awareness and money for the medications that saved her life. The judges credit the program additionally for its success in moving viewers to contribute interactively to a number of organizations dedicated to health improvement worldwide.