European Migrant Crisis/A New Life in Europe/The Year of Migration

The biggest news story in the summer of 2015 was the unprecedented flow of refugees from Syria, Libya and elsewhere, throngs of displaced persons attempting to enter European Union countries by land and by sea. Conveying the scale, the chaos, the political implications and the human tragedies of this rapidly moving crisis was an enormous task to which the BBC’s news operations rose impressively. Reporting across its worldwide range of television and radio platforms, the BBC brought us the key moments from the flashpoint places, the moving individual stories which illuminated the wider issue, and the vital wider context to this complex event. Particularly memorable were Gavin Hewitt’s report from Hungary, Fergal Keane’s encounters with refugee families in the Balkans (especially a disabled girl whom he later catches up with after she has made it to Germany) and Manveen Rana’s radio journey with one family from Syria to Germany. For simultaneously incisive and compassionate reporting of this intractable story, the BBC’s coverage of Europe’s migrant crisis is recognized with a Peabody Award.