The cable network HBO, two PBS stations and ABC’s Nightline were among the top recipients of the 62nd annual George Foster Peabody Awards, which honor excellence in broadcasting.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Peabody Board said that the winning 31 programs on 23 outlets reflected a wide range of topics–unlike last year, which was dominated by the events of Sept. 11. This year only three winners dealt with the terrorist attacks.
“Certainly…we had some strong local news programming, investigative reports,” Horace Newcomb, director of the Peabody Awards, told The Reporter. “Given the state of local news, that was very encouraging. Strong stations found good stories and pursued them in a careful and analytical manner.”
ABC’s prestigious Nightline with Ted Koppel has previously won both Peabody and DuPont awards. This year the news program was honored for Heart of Darkness, an examination of the conflict in the Congo, and The Survivors, a documentary about people who helped Sept. 11 burn victims.
HBO took home three awards for their series Six Feet Under, the special Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam and the Winston Churchill biopic The Gathering Storm. PBS outlets New York’s WNET and Boston’s WGBH won two awards for two ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theater productions, American Collection and Othello.
Other cable networks honored included CNN, Court TV, ESPN, BBC America, TNT and Showtime.
A panel of 15 judges from the television industry, academia and the media judged the annual awards. According to The Reporter, the Peabody Awards, which will be handed out May 19 in New York, will appear for the first time on national television when A&E airs the event in June.
