‘Friday Night Lights,’ HBO Doc, Ed Bradley Win Peabody Awards

ATLANTA (April 4, 2007) — One of the late Ed Bradley’s final “60 Minutes” stories was among 35 Peabody Award winners announced Wednesday.

Bradley, the pioneering black CBS journalist who died of leukemia last November, won for an examination of the Duke University rape case. A rare “institutional award” went to National Public Radio’s StoryCorps project, which let people record oral histories on a variety of subjects in booths that tour the country. Edited versions are broadcast regularly on NPR, and the full recordings are in the Library of Congress.

The 66th annual George Foster Peabody awards for broadcasting excellence were announced by the University of Georgia in Athens. They are to be handed out at a June 4 ceremony in New York hosted by sportscaster Bob Costas.

Hurricane Katrina coverage made it into the awards again, with HBO receiving one for Spike Lee’s documentary “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” about New Orleans life after the disaster. Last year two Gulf Coast stations that stayed on the air throughout Katrina won Peabodys, along with CNN and NBC for coverage of the hurricane.

HBO also won for “Baghdad ER,” a documentary about medical personnel in a war zone; “The Music in Me,” a showcase of young performers playing everything from cello to zydeco accordion; “Billy Jean King: Portrait of a Pioneer”; and “Elizabeth I,” a biographical movie starring Academy Award winner Helen Mirren.

First-time Peabody winners include the Cartoon Network for “Return of the King” and an installment of the animated series “Boondocks”; the Food Network for “Good Eats,” a program that explores food, science, history and culture; the Independent Film Channel for its series of short films “Beyond Borders: Personal Stories from a Small Planet”; and mun2, a Telemundo subsidiary for younger viewers, for “For My Country? Latinos in the Military.”

ABC News won two awards: for a Brian Ross piece, “Conduct Unbecoming,” on U.S. Rep. Mark Foley’s sexually explicit e-mails to congressional pages; and for “Out of Control: AIDS in Black America.”

NBC News won for “The Education of Ms. Groves,” which followed a first-year middle-school teacher in Atlanta.

Local television stations in St. Louis, Indianapolis, and New Haven, Conn., won awards. New Haven’s WTNH-TV won for its “Defective Parts on Blackhawk Helicopters,” which resulted in a corporate shake up at the nearby Sikorsky Aircraft plant.

Indianapolis’ WISH-TV won for “Command Mistake,” which looked at the inadequate protective padding being put into U.S. Marine helmets. WTHR-TV in Indianapolis also won for investigations “Prescription Privacy” and “Cause for Alarm.”

KMOV-TV in St. Louis won for “Left Behind: The Failure of East St. Louis Schools,” a series of 21 reports that uncovered widespread nepotism by the school board and found violations of federal special-education requirements.

Two Web sites won for online projects: washingtonpost.com won for “Being a Black Man,” testimonials and interactive features designed to defy stereotypes, and channel4.com won for “FourDocs,” a series of short documentaries that teaches nonfiction film making.

In the entertainment categories, award winners include “Friday Night Lights,” “The Office” and “Scrubs” from NBC; Showtime’s “Brotherhood”; ABC’s “Ugly Betty”; and the BBC America’s “Gideon’s Daughter.”

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