By Sharron Hannon
Two popular Fox series, The Simpsons and The X-Files, plus ABC's NYPD Blue and NBC's Law & Order are among the winners of the 56th annual George Foster Peabody Awards, considered the broadcast and cable industry's most prestigious prize.
Thirty-one awards--chosen from more than 1,100 entries--were announced April 3 by UGA's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, which has administered the Peabody Awards program since its inception in 1940. The awards will be presented at a May 12 ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.
WGBH-TV, a PBS affiliate in Boston, garnered a record six of the 25 awards presented for TV programs. Episodes of Frontline, Nova, The American Experience and Mobil Masterpiece Theatre were among those honored.
Steven Spielberg collected a Peabody Award--his second--for Survivors of the Holocaust, a documentary special co-produced by Turner Original Productions and Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. The Peabody judges singled out Spielberg for his personal commitment to the preservation of the testimonies of Holocaust survivors.
Lily Tomlin received a Peabody for Edith Ann's Christmas, an ABC special, and also served as co-executive producer and narrator for The Celluloid Closet, a report on how Hollywood has portrayed gay and lesbian characters--one of four programs from Home Box Office to win an award.
Included among this year's radio winners is an NPR documentary on the 1994 death of Eric Morse, the 5-year-old thrown from the 14th floor of a Chicago housing project by two other boys. The reporters: LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman, two 16-year-old residents of the same housing project.
"The full range of the American media system is represented--from prime-time entertainment to documentaries to children's programming," says Peabody Awards Director Barry Sherman, professor of telecommunications. "Moreover, the Peabody program continues to spread its influence internationally, with winners from England, Germany, France and Canada this year."
Unlike other industry honors, Peabody Awards are given solely on the basis of merit, rather than within designated categories. The number of awards varies from year to year. Award winners are selected by a 15-person national advisory board composed of TV critics, broadcast and cable industry executives, and experts in culture and fine arts. The Peabody board meets at the university for four intensive days of deliberations at the end of March. Selected university faculty and students assist with prescreening of entries in the months preceding the board meeting.
In addition to choosing meritorious radio and TV programs, the board often honors individuals. Receiving personal Peabody Awards this year are Bud Greenspan, whose 50-year career as a sports journalist and filmmaker includes chronicling the Olympic Games through the decades, and Peter Gzowski, a Toronto broadcaster in his 15th season as host of CBC Radio's Morningside, an eclectic three-hour feast of conversation, personal essays, music and drama.
The British Broadcasting Corporation co-produced several of the award-winning programs--including Pride and Prejudice, a six-hour mini-series presented in the United States by the A&E Television Networks. In addition, BBC News won an award for a three-part report on Afghanistan by foreign affairs editor John Simpson.
Another international winner was Carlton Television for Wise Up!, a magazine series produced for Channel 4, London, that allows teenagers to report on issues they care about with teen edge and humor.
Investigative reporting and public service programs netted awards for four network affiliates: KOMO in Seattle, WCCO in Minneapolis, WNBC in New York and WCVB in Boston. In addition to WGBH, two other PBS affiliates--KCET in Los Angeles and WETA in Washington, D.C.--also received awards.
