The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has nominated the ProPublica project “Meet the Woman Fighting for the Rights of Voters Who Can’t Read”, which features Mayor Pro Tem Olivia Pearson, for a News & Documentary Emmy Award in the Outstanding Soft Feature Story: Short Form category.
According to the July 27, 2023 ProPublica press release, the short film focuses on, “laws that make it both harder for voters who struggle to read to cast a ballot and, at the same time, discourage anyone trying to help them. Olivia Coley-Pearson knows this better than most. She has been criminally charged twice in the past decade for her attempts to help people navigate their ballots; she has never been found guilty of any wrongdoing. She serves as a city commissioner in Douglas, the majority-Black seat of Coffee County, Georgia, where a third of the population struggles to read.”
In May 2022, ProPublica’s journalists followed Coley-Pearson on the day of Georgia’s primary elections to capture her efforts to give voters access to assistance. The video was directed and edited by Mauricio Rodríguez Pons, who collaborated on the cinematography with Zach Read. It was executive produced by Almudena Toral, with additional production by Aliyya Swaby, Annie Waldman and Rodríguez Pons.
Read the full press release from ProPublica here, https://www.propublica.org/atpropublica/propublica-project-receives-emmy-nomination.