The film, Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground, documents the students' journey on the path of electronic waste around the globe, which takes them to Ghana, China and India.
The team's work uncovered issues surrounding public health and human rights, as well as a previously unknown US security breach, after purchasing hard drives in Ghana containing sensitive information about multimillion-dollar defence contracts involving the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security.
The 10 young journalists, from the University of British Columbia's graduate school of journalism, worked with former 60 minutes producer Professor Peter Klein, who describes the nominations as "an incredible achievement" in a release. The documentary was aired on the PBS documentary series FRONTLINE/World last year.
"People work their entire careers to get any of these awards. So it's pretty special that our students achieved this recognition for the great work they've done so early in their careers," says Klein.
The documentary has been nominated in two award categories: Outstanding Investigative Journalism and Outstanding Research. Across the two categories the students will compete against HBO, 60 Minutes and Nightline.
This would not be the first award granted to the documentary, which has already received the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Best Documentary of the Year from the Society for Professional Journalists and
was also nominated for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
But it is the first time students at a Canadian university have been nominated for an Emmy in a news category.
Professor Klein has also been nominated for a third Emmy, for Outstanding Business or Economic Reporting, for another documentary he produced, called Over a Barrel: The Truth About Oil.
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