Morley Safer to host 64th annual Peabody Awards on May 16

Written by Eric Holder, University of Georgia, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, Public Relations department head, the Peabody Awards

Athens, Ga. – Veteran CBS News correspondent and “60 Minutes” co-editor Morley Safer will host the 64th Annual George Foster Peabody Awards ceremony to be held Monday, May 16, at the Waldorf=Astoria in New York. Safer, a winner of three Peabodys during his six decades on television, was praised by the Peabody Board as “a consummate professional whose contribution to the television industry is absolutely undeniable.”

The winners of the Peabody Awards for original broadcast, cablecast and webcast programs presented in 2004 will be announced April 7 in a ceremony taking place from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. ET at the Museum of Television & Radio in New York. This marks the return of the announcement to New York for the first time in five years. Satellite coordinates for the broadcast feed are: Satellite: Galaxy 3C-KU Band Analog, Transponder 12, Downlink Frequency 11930 (H).

“When it aired exactly forty years ago, Morley’s piece for ‘CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite’ helped change the perception of the Vietnam War and has been a benchmark for generations of young reporters, including those currently embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are honored that he has agreed to host this year,” noted Horace Newcomb, director of the Peabody Awards at the University of Georgia.

The pivotal broadcast, which showed U.S. Marines burning the village of Cam Ne, was one of the realistic reports that helped change America’s view of the war and changed war reporting forever. “As Morley celebrates his 35th anniversary with ‘60 Minutes,’ we can look back at his incredible body of work and only hope that journalism continues his legacy of integrity and professionalism,” added Newcomb.

Safer’s body of work, spanning six decades, was acknowledged with a Lifetime Achievement Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the 2003 George Polk Memorial Career Achievement Award from Long Island University. He also recently received the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism awards’ first prize for domestic television for his insightful report about a controversial school, “School for the Homeless” (February 2001). Safer’s news-making reports and interviews have been honored with numerous other awards, including 12 Emmys, three Overseas Press Club Awards,

three George Foster Peabody Awards, two Alfred I. DuPont–Columbia University Awards, a George Polk Memorial Award and the Paul White Award from the Radio/Television News Directors Association (RTNDA). In 1995, he was named a Chévalier dans l`Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

The Peabody Awards, considered among the most prestigious and selective prizes in electronic media, recognize excellence and meritorious work by radio and television stations, networks, webcasters, producing organizations and individuals.

The 15-member Peabody Board is a distinguished panel of television critics, industry practitioners and experts in culture and the arts. The Peabody board, which includes television critics, industry practitioners, scholars and experts in culture and fine arts, recently announced the names of four new board members: Susan Douglas, professor and chair of the department of communication studies at the University of Michigan; Jonathan Estrin, executive vice president of the American Film Institute and a prize-winning television writer and producer; Raúl Garza, senior vice president and director of diversity communication for Hill & Knowlton, Inc., a public relations firm in Los Angeles; and Frazier Moore, a 1974 journalism graduate of the University of Georgia, who has covered television for the Associated Press (AP) since 1992.

The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at UGA administers the Peabody Awards, as it has since the program’s inception in 1940. For more information regarding the Peabody Awards program, the Peabody Awards Collection and the Peabody Center for Media and Society, visit www.peabody.uga.edu.