ABC News and National Geographic are among the top winners at night one of the 2026 News & Documentary Emmy Awards on Wednesday.
ABC World News Tonight with David Muir took home the award for outstanding live news program, while CNN Worldwide’s The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper won the award for outstanding recorded news program. Overall, ABC received eight awards, Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller via National Geographic/Muck Media won seven Emmys and CNN took home four.
Amber Ruffin hosted the ceremony held at the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City. ABC’s Debra OConnell was also on hand to present the lifetime achievement honors to Emmy and Peabody-winning ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz, while Emmy-winning documentarian and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sam Pollard will receive lifetime achievement honors on Thursday.
“When the revolutionary generation put pen to parchment 250 years ago, they chose to align themselves to a vision of public freedom reinforced a decade later by the First Amendment. Generations of writers, publishers and broadcasters have rightly joined together to push back ever since,” Adam Sharp, president and CEO of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, said in a statement. “Journalists are torchbearers for the public right to know and to speak.”
