Photo: From left, Jane Fonda, Barry Sherman, Ted Turner and UGA President Michael Adams. The recipient of a Personal Peabody Award, Ted Turner got word of his award on opening day of the Atlanta Braves season. By Paul Efland.
By Sharron Hannon
On the day before the official announcement of the 57th annual Peabody Awards, a publicist from 60 Minutes called to check on the number of Peabodys won by the show over the years.
"Don Hewitt, the executive producer of the show, is the subject of an upcoming American Masters profile for PBS and they wanted to get his credits right," says telecommunications professor Barry Sherman, who as director of the Peabody Awards gets to make the phone calls notifying winners each year. "I told the publicist that the show had won six in the past, but that the new number was seven and suggested they patch me through to Hewitt. When he got on the phone, I said, 'I'm going to make your day,' and he said, 'If this is about another Peabody Award, you're going to make my century.' "
Such is generally the reaction to the news that a program has won what is widely considered to be the most prestigious award in the broadcast and cable industry.
Administered since 1940 by UGA's College of Journalism and Mass Communication, the Peabodys differ from other industry awards because they are given solely on the basis of merit, rather than within designated categories. Judges are under no restrictions on the number of annual winners.
This year, 34 awards were presented, chosen from more than 1,300 entries by a national advisory board that meets at UGA for four days of intensive deliberations at the end of March.
Nothing Sacred, Ellen
win
Among the winners were two controversial ABC prime-time series--Nothing Sacred and Ellen. The recently cancelled Nothing Sacred was cited by the Peabody judges as providing "an honest portrayal of the complexity of faith in the modern era." The series Ellen received an award for "The Puppy Episode," in which the lead character came to grips with her sexual identity.
CBS's 60 Minutes won an institutional award for ongoing exellence, as did Sunday Morning, another venerable CBS program.
Personal Peabodys
Personal Peabody Awards went to Ted Turner, whom the judges called a "titanic figure in modern electronic communication," and to Chicago news-woman Carol Marin, who was cited for her "personal commitment to ethics and integrity in local broadcast journalism."
Turner got word of his award on opening day of the Braves season. CNN president Tom Johnson, a UGA alumnus, arranged for Sherman and President Michael Adams and his wife, Mary, to sit in Turnered for Sherman and President Michael Adams and his wife, Mary, to sit in Turner's box.
man. "He grabbed Dr. Adams and said, 'I loved Georgia before, but I love it even more now.' "
The awards will be presented at a May 11 ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and Turner has promised to be there, says Sherman.
Other winners include NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street, which received an nprecedented third Peabody Award in five years; the series was previously honored for its 1993 and 1995 seasons.
Perennial Peabody winner WGBH-TV in Boston received three awards: for the Mobil Masterpiece Theatre production "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" and for "The American Experience: The Presidents Series" and "The American Experience: Troublesome Creek--A Midwestern."
The British Broadcasting Corporation was honored for its participation in "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" and for a "surprisingly new and informative exposé" of the Third Reich, called The Nazis: A Warning from History.
The French documentary In the Land of the Deaf another international winner, one of the two first-ever Peabody Awards to Bravo/The Independent Film Channel. Bravo's other winner was Blue Note: A History of Modern Jazz.
Another first is the Peabody Award to a local cable channel for Look for Me Here: 299 Days in the Life of Nora Lenihan, a portrait of a woman facing death that aired on New England Cable News.
Also honored were Nickelodeon's five-year public service campaign, The Big Help, which encourages children to volunteer in their communities, and two PBS children's series: Wishbone and The Eddie Files.
'Risk-takers' honored
"The Peabody judges honored shows that took risks and didn't shrink from controversial topics," says Sherman. "Many of this year's winners also examined issues of human values and served as positive affirmations of the human spirit.
" The 15-person national advisory board that selects award winners is made up of TV critics, broadcast and cable industry executives and experts in culture and fine arts.
All entries become a permanent part of the Peabody Archive in the university libraries. The collection is one of the nation's oldest, largest and most respected moving-image archives.
