1971 duPont-Columbia Award Winners
In a special program, the duPont-Columbia University Awards announced 6 winners.
Justice in America Parts I to III - CBS News
"Justice in America" was produced by John Sharnik for CBS News with "an outstanding commentary by Eric Sevareid." In preparation for over a year, its three one-hour segments, according to the DuPont-Columbia jurors, "examined with unusual thoroughness the inequities and inadequacies of the U.S. courts and penal institutions. Its baldly stated imperatives -- reformed courts, reformed law enforcement, reformed penal institutions -- were tragically underscored a few weeks later by the events at San Quentin and Attica."
All The Kids Like That: Tommy's Story Group W
Susan Garfield's "All The Kids Like That," produced for Group W, was one of many radio and television programs which demonstrated during the year a heightened sensitivity and understanding in the treatment of the nation's drug epidemic. In classic documentary style, the program, according to the jurors, "explored the case of an attractive middle-class fifteen-year-old boy from a prosperous Boston suburb... The producers, faced with a complex and frustrating human situation, refused to simplify or capitulate in favor of a happy or hopeful ending." In Miss Garfield's words, "It was hoped that in gaining some intimacy with Tommy Hayes, the audience's own perceptions would have broadened and deepened, and in the end a great deal of information about the enormity and subtlety of drug abuse would be conveyed."
Warriors Without A Weapon - KUTV, Salt Lake City
Diane Orr produced "Warriors Without A Weapon" for KUTV, Salt Lake City. A half-hour film on the plight of the Goshute Indians of Utah, it centered on one man, Earl Baker, who made these closing remarks. "We, Indians, always say this, you know, talk among ourselves. They're building them rocket ships, maybe they'll leave this place to us. We'll have it all back again. They'll go to some other place. We always say I wish white people never come here so we don't have all this sickness and we don't have this fighting. They don't have to send us over there to do their fighting for them."
First Tuesday:The Man from Uncle (Sam) and The FBI - NBC News
"The Man From Uncle (Sam)" and "The FBI" were both substantial segments of the two-hour monthly magazine show on NBC television, "First Tuesday." They both, according to the duPont-Columbia jurors, "dealt with the precarious state of individual privacy in the national and examined agencies more accustomed to prying than being pried into." "The Man From Uncle (Sam)" was produced by William B. Hill and reported by correspondent Tom Pettit, whose "CBW (Chemical-Biological Warfare) -- The Secrets of Secrecy" was a duPont-Columbia prizewinner two years prior. The result, said the jurors, "was a highly expert, indefatigable piece of investigative reporting." The program preceded Senator Sam Ervin's highly publicized Senate hearings on the same subject. "Equally ominous, although somewhat lighter in its approach," according to the jurors, was "First Tuesday's" segment on "The FBI," reported and produced by Garric Utley and Thomas Tomizawa, with Walter Pincus serving as special consultant. "An initial amusement was gradually dispelled by the comments of two former agents and several others of the Bureau's admirers and detractors, including many of the objects of its curiosity.
White Paper: This Child is Rated X - NBC News
Martin Carr's award-winning programs, "Migrant" and "This Child is Rated X," also immediately preceded important Congressional hearings and had an unmistakable impact upon them. In "Migrant," a return visit to the scene of Edward R. Murrow's classic television documentary "Harvest of Shame," Carr presented a vivid picture of "corporate indifference to the plight of the field workers and their families illustrated in a series of brief, heartbreaking encounters with individual migrants, men, women, and children. The second Carr documentary, "This Child Is Rated X," was an examination of the treatment of juvenile delinquents in the courts and penal institutions of the United States. "Again it forced the viewer to consider the sad condition of some of society's victims he might prefer to ignore... Carr's ability to get people, both victim and victimizer, to reveal themselves to the camera, so clear in 'Migrant' and 'Hunger in America' (produced for CBS in 1968), was once again demonstrated... The two Carr programs proved that individual documentarians still had opportunities on network television, however rare, to seek out social injustices and make highly effective statements about them."
Drug Crisis in East Harlem - WABC-TV, Geraldo Rivera
"Drug Crisis in East Harlem," reported by WABC-TV's Geraldo Rivera on the weekly show "Like Is Is," was the shortest segment (ten minutes) to have ever won a duPont-Columbia Award at the time it won. In the most shocking of the many drug programs to be aired during the year, Rivera took his camera to the rooftops and basements of East Harlem where there were hardcore addicts. "Without undue gentleness or consideration he shoved his microphone into their faces and demanded straight answers, and got them... sometimes. Rivera broke all the conventions of interviewing and got a grueling ten minutes of film that few who saw it would soon forget."