CNN

Chicken Noodle Network, they mocked, when CNN launched on a wing and a prayer almost 44 years ago. It was a revolutionary and, many thought, crazy idea: TV news, 24/7. The all-powerful US networks were confident that this upstart rival, thinly resourced and prone to on-air gaffes, wouldn’t last six months.

Instead, of course, it grew into an important and influential global news machine generating huge profits for its founder, Ted Turner, and a $7.3bn shares payday when he sold to Time Warner.

The work that we do… is really expensive, resource-heavy and time-heavy. Maybe we can pull together a really big investigation every two months, but we see the impact and the audiences – that’s what keeps CNN and other [news] organisations… investing in investigative work.”

Nima Elbagir, CNN’s chief international investigative correspondent, was extolling the virtue of combining old-fashioned journalism with forensic open-source investigative techniques to compile reports from the world’s trouble spots.

Hosted by journalist and presenter Cathy Newman, the prestigious awards will take place on Wednesday 23 February 2022 at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London and will celebrate creative and excellent journalism for both news and current affairs.

The Inside Politics anchor admits once naively assuming he had seen all the ‘wild roller coaster elections' history could throw at him.

“I thought, I’ve been through all the crazy, right? There’s nothing that’s going to surprise me,” he says. “How many times as a journalist do you get the gift of a story so dramatic and compelling? But this one was…wow.”

The stained linen suit, the self-draining tumbler of Scotch, the well-turned tale about cheating death on the road – my every preconception about war correspondents has just been shattered by meeting Nima Elbagir.

Although she shares all their best qualities, she is not as other foreign hacks. She doesn’t drink. She doesn’t brag. And when she flies into a war zone she packs her prayer mat.

Really? “Actually, I tend to use whatever I can find. My camping towel will generally do.”

Watch extended highlights from the award ceremony.

The shortlist for The Grierson Trust 2015 British Documentary Awards has been announced.

The BBC and Channel 4 dominate the list, with 34 and 25 entries respectively.

Channel 5 features in the list for the first time since 2009, with nods for GPs: Behind Closed Doors and Can’t Pay? Final Demand Special.

First-time nominees include Vice for The Islamic State, BBC iPlayer with Adam Curtis’ Bitter Lake, CNN for Extreme Antibiotics and, in a children’s first, CBBC with Mr Alzheimers and Me.