"60 Minutes" Wins Two Peabody Awards
For the fourth straight year, "60 Minutes" will be honored by the Peabody Awards - one of the oldest and most prestigious honors given for outstanding work in electronic media. America's most watched news program will receive two Peabody's in a May ceremony, both for stories reported by Steve Kroft, who has already been named the winner of several of the industry's highest honors over the past year.
"The Peabody people at the University of Georgia are among the best in the business of selecting the finest work of the year," said "60 Minutes" Executive Producer Jeff Fager. "It's a proud moment when we win one, which makes it even sweeter to win two. Special congratulations go to Steve, who continues to report one amazing story after another, year after year."
The news magazine will receive Peabody awards for "Sabotaging the System," Kroft's investigation into the vulnerability of infrastructure such as waterworks, power grids or even a nation's military arsenal, to computer hackers. It was produced by Graham Messick, with Associate Producer Michael Karzis, Senior Producer Michael Radutzky, Editor Warren Lustig and Broadcast Associate Kevin Livelli.
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The second award was for "The Cost of Dying," a look at the common practice of prolonging the lives of dying Americans at enormous cost that was produced by Andy Court, with Associate Producer Maria Gavrilovic, Editor Stephanie Palewsky and Broadcast Associate Reuben Heyman-Kantor.
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These honors bring the total of Peabody awards won by "60 Minutes" to 18.
Kroft will be receiving the Paul White Award on April 11 from the Radio and Television Digital News Association, the highest honor the industry's peer group bestows on an individual for a body of work. Next week, on April 8, he will receive a George Polk Award for "The Price of Oil," which reported that Wall Street speculation rather than supply or demand led to wild fluctuations in the price of oil. Last June, Kroft's three financial stories, "House of Cards," "Wall Street's Shadow Market" and "Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction" - all explaining the complicated and toxic financial instruments that caused the banking crisis - were awarded the Television Breaking News prize at the Loeb Awards.