FOUR TV STATIONS AMONG PEABODY WINNERS

In a repeat of last year, four commercial TV stations were among the 35 winners of 2008 Peabody Awards announced via Webcast this morning.

WTAE, Hearst-Argyle Television’s ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh, won for a series of more than 20 stories exposing waste at the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.

To get the stories, WTAE had to battle PHEAA officials for access to travel records. And, in the end, the agency’s top administrator was forced into early retirement.

Belo’s WFAA Dallas-Fort Worth, an ABC affiliate, was cited for four reports: an investigation of fraudulent loans by the U.S. Export-Import Bank; a report on faulty gas pipelines; a story raising questions about the relationship between TV producers and public officials on the NBC Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” series and a report on a home security prison that detains families, including children.

WSLS, Media General’s NBC affiliate in Roanoke-Lynchburg, Va., won for its coverage of the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007.

Scripps’ KNXV Phoenix won for an undercover story exposing a major security breach at the city’s Sky Harbor airport. The ABC affiliate’s reports led to the dismissal of the federal security administrator and a tightening of access to the airport’s secure areas.

Last year’s TV station winners were LIN Television's WTNH New Haven, Conn., and WISH Indianapolis; Belo's KMOV St. Louis; and Dispatch Broadcast Group's WTHR Indianapolis.

First awarded in 1941, the Peabodys recognize excellence in electronic media—TV, radio and the Internet—around the world.

The 2008 awards are for programs that aired in 2007.

In addition to the four TV stations, the Peabody judges this year also honored 31 other TV and radio programs.

The only broadcast primetime show to capture a Peabody was 30 Rock, the NBC Thursday night sitcom.

Two cable dramas also won: Dexter, Showtime’s controversial series about a serial killer, and AMC’s Mad Men, which takes viewers back to the world of advertising in the early 1960s.

The Colbert Report, the spoof of politics and media on the Comedy Channel featuring Stephen Colbert, was also honored.

For the first time, the Peabodys recognized a reality show—Bravo’s popular fashion design competition, Project Runway.

The Peabodys also honored a game show, Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the live topical radio quiz show produced by Chicago Public Radio and National Public Radio.

Other winners:

A Journey Across Afghanistan: Opium and Roses (Bulgaria’s Balkan News Corp.)

Whole Lotta Shakin (Texas Heritage Music Foundation)

Ya Es Hora (Univision)

Wounds of War: The Long Road Home for Our Nation’s Veterans (ABC News)

“The Way Home” (CBS News’s Sunday Morning)

“The Killings in Haditha” (CBS News’s 60 Minutes)

Planet Earth (Discovery)

Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life (Independent Lens)

Nature: Silence of the Bees (WNET NewYork)/PBS)

Design Squad (WGBH Boston)

Taxi to the Dark Side

Nimrod Nation (Sundance Channel)

mtvU: Half of Us

Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial (NOVA/PBS)

Sisters in Law (Independent Lens)

Cheney’s Law (Frontline/PBS)

Art:21—Art in the 21^st Century

Craft in America: Memory, Landscape and Community

White Horse (BBC America)

CNN Presents: God’s Warriors

To Die in Jerusalem (HBO)

 The MMT Files (American Public Media)

 Speaking of Faith (American Public Media)

The Brain Lehrer Show (WNYC-FM New York)

Just Words (Center for Emerging Media/WYPR-FM Baltimore)

The awards are administered are administered by the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia in Athens. They are named after the businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody.

The Peabodys will be presented to the winning producers and outlets at a luncheon at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on June 16.