Beyonce’s visual album Lemonade, the HBO workplace comedy Veep and the British crime drama Happy Valley are among this year’s Peabody 30.
The other entertainment programs chosen by the Peabody Awards board of jurors are FX Productions’ Atlanta and Better Things, Pig Newton Inc.’s Horace and Pete and the Forge’s National Treasure.
Atlanta is the Donald Glover series about the struggles of two young black men trying to make it in Atlanta’s rap scene. Co-created by Pamela Adlon and Louis C.K., Better Things is an examination of the vicissitudes of working motherhood. Horace and Pete melds contemporary politics and serialized storytelling with a throwback approach. National Treasure explores the loyalty of family and friends during crisis, the impact of sexual abuse on victims and the legal system itself.
The 12 documentary winners are Audrie & Daisy, the tale of how social media shaming enacts a secondary traumatization of teen rape victims; 4.1 Miles, a short film about a Greek boat captain thrust into the journeys undertaken by refugees risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean and find safe haven in Europe; FRONTLINE: Confronting ISIS, a report about the political complexities behind the rise of the terrorist group, their strategies in recruitment and tactics and America’s diplomatic missteps and heightened challenges; FRONTLINE: Exodus, a report on the refugee and migrant crisis; Hip-Hop Evolution, a history of hip-hop music; Independent Lens: Trapped, a report that examines the motivation and politics surrounding “TRAP” laws specifically designed to restrict access to abortion; MAVIS!, a story about the influence of Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers across music genres; O.J.: Made in America, an examination of American culture, race, celebrity, masculinity and criminality; POV: Hooligan Sparrow, the story of Ye Haiyan, also known as “Hooligan Sparrow,” and a small group of women’s rights activists protesting the state of sexual assault crises in schools in China; Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four, which follows four Latina lesbians wrongfully accused of sexual assault in the mid-1990s; 13th, a deconstruction of the criminalization of African-Americans as a means of exercising social control of black populations; and Zero Days, which maps how cybersecurity experts discovered the computer worm known as Stuxnet.
The board of jurors selected 11 winners across the categories of news, public service, radio/podcast and web. The news honorees are “Arrested at School: Criminalizing Classroom Misbehavior, ” a report from KNTV Bay Area into local school districts relying on police as a means of student discipline; “Charity Caught on Camera,” an investigative journalism report about mismanagement and corruption at a local nonprofit; three CNN packages—”ISIS in Iraq and Syria,” “Undercover in Syria,” “Battle for Mosul”of on-the-ground reporting from the Middle East; “Dangerous Exposure,” a local investigative journalism piece about how one Indiana watchdog agency failed to do its job; and “Heart of an Epidemic, West Virginia’s Opioid Addiction,” an investigation into shady “pill mills.”
The honoree in the public service category is Just Not Sports & One Tree Forest Films for “#MoreThanMean—Women in Sports ‘Face’ Harassment,” a short video about civility online and the damage of vicious tweets.
In the radio/podcast category, honorees are APM Reports for “In the Dark,” an examination of a 27-year-old cold case in central Minnesota; Mars Patel LLC (Panoply) for “The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel,” an original, serialized podcast that transports listeners to follow Mars Patel—a plucky but brilliant outcast prone to trouble—and his friends as they investigate the mysterious connection between disappearing kids and a billionaire inventor; PBC in collaboration with The Marshall Project and ProPublica for “This American Life: Anatomy of Doubt,” the report of a young woman whose allegations of rape are dismissed by both the police and those closest to her juxtaposed with the account of how her rapist was eventually captured by another police department; and NPR for “Wells Fargo Hurts Whistleblowers,” a report on the systemic issues of a sales culture at Wells Fargo that led not only to the creation of 2 million fake consumer banking accounts but also the blacklisting of employees who attempted to report unethical practices.
The honoree in the web category is ProPublica and The Texas Tribune for “Hell and High Water,”which tells the story of Houston’s current and future vulnerability to dangerous flooding resulting from global warming.
Recipients will be honored at the 76th annual Peabody Awards ceremony, hosted by Rashida Jones, May 20 in New York.
