Two wounded reporters receive Peabody Awards

ATHENS, Ga. -- Stories about wounded Iraq veterans, reported by war-wounded TV journalists, won Peabody Awards on Wednesday.

Thirty-five recipients of the 67th annual George Foster Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence in news and entertainment were announced by the University of Georgia ahead of a ceremony in New York City on June 16.

Peabodys went to “Wounds of War -- The Long Road Home for Our Nation’s Veterans,” a series of reports by ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff, and to “CBS News Sunday Morning: The Way Home” for Kimberly Dozier’s piece about two women veterans who lost limbs in Iraq.

Dozier and Woodruff survived near-fatal attacks while on assignment in Iraq.

Another CBS News series, “60 Minutes,” won a Peabody for Scott Pelley’s report “The Killings in Haditha.”

“The range of genres, the variety of topics and the consistently high quality of submissions for Peabody consideration indicated again that amazing work is being done in electronic media,” Peabody Awards director Horace Newcomb said in a statement.

Awards also went to Discovery’s “Planet Earth,” which used HDTV to showcase natural wonders; “Independent Lens” for “Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life,” a portrait of Duke Ellington’s collaborator; “Nature: Silence of the Bees,” an inquiry into the decline in the world’s honeybee population from Thirteen/WNET; and WGBH-Boston’s “Design Squad,” an engineering competition for young people.

Awards for entertainment series went to NBC’s “30 Rock” and Bravo’s “Project Runway.”

Peabodys also went to “Mad Men,” AMC’s drama set in the world of 1960s New York advertising, and “Dexter,” Showtime’s drama about a serial killer who preys on other sociopaths. “Nimrod Nation,” an eight-part documentary series from Sundance Channel, also received a Peabody.

Other recipients included Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” and “A Journey Across Afghanistan: Opium and Roses,” a documentary from Bulgaria’s Balkan News Corporation.

“Whole Lotta Shakin,” the Texas Heritage Music Foundation’s public-radio series chronicling the 1950s heyday of rockabilly music, received a Peabody, as did Univision’s “Ya Es Hora,” a public-service campaign that taught legal aliens how to apply for American citizenship.

The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication has administered the Peabodys in Athens, Ga., since the program’s inception in 1940. The awards ceremony in New York will be hosted by NBC news anchor Brian Williams.