1970 duPont-Columbia Award Winners
In a special program, the duPont-Columbia University Awards announced 6 winners.
Kenneth A. Cox
Kenneth A. Cox has been concerned in government activities relating to broadcasting for more than fifteen years. In 1955, Mr. Cox was named special counsel for the Senate Commerce Committee. He helped direct that committee's television inquiry of 1956-1957. He conducted additional hearings for the Senate committee in 1958, 1959, and 1960. In April 1961, FCC Chairman Newton Minow named him chief of the commission's Broadcasting Bureau, in which capacity he served until he was appointed commissioner by President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Mr. Cox was an early and vigorous advocate of the review and upgrading of renewal standards for broadcast licencees. He was also a leader in the fight against undue concentration of media strength, and one of the commission's foremost supporters of the claims for public television in channel allocations and government financial support.
Hospital - Frederic Wiseman and National Education Television
"Hospital" was produced, directed, and edited by Frederick Wiseman for National Educational Television with a special grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This 90-minute documentary was done entirely without interviews or narration. In the words of the jurors, "Hospital" was "perhaps the finest documentary of the year. Wiseman and his cameramen spent a month in the wards, corridors, and waiting rooms of Metropolitan Hospital, a public institution ministering to the poor of New York City." The result was not, as one might have expected, an insufferable invasion of privacy, but a chronicle of human pain and bewilderment answered by endless kindness and reassurance. Stereotype after stereotype was shattered. What remained was a heartening example of what might be done by men of good will and by television."
Charlie Company - CBS News
John Laurence's reports on Charlie Company, seen on successive nights on the CBS Evening News in April 1970, was cited as an outstanding example of battlefront reportage. The jurors said, "In April, correspondent John Laurence sent his network six segments devoted to the activities of one infantry company -- Company C, 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry, 1st Air Cavalry Division -- on patrol in Vietnam." The jury said that Charlie Company was "perhaps the finest example to date of this serial documentary that has been steadily growing in popularity on both network and local stations."
White Paper: Pollution is a Matter of Choice - NBC News
Television's coverage of the environmental crisis was extensive this cycle. According to the jurors, "the networks' task, to cover the subject nationwide, was formidable. There were numerous impressive tries. But the documentary most successful in conveying the magnitutde of the problem was 'Pollution Is a Matter of Choice,' an NBC White Paper produced by Fred Freed. Broadcast in April 1970, the one-hour program explored the environmental problems of three locations: Machiasport, Maine; Gary, Indiana; and Florida's Everglades. In the process, the physical conflict between nature and an expanding technology, and the clash between the needs of the poor and the affluent, were caught in expert camera work and a literature script. Offering no pat solutions, the program ended with some difficult questions -- 'What quality of life is possible in an industrialized society?... What are we willing to give up to clean up our environment? Cars? Television sets... air conditioners... comforts?'"
Grunt's Little War - WCCO-TV Minneapolis
"Grunt's Little War," filmed by WCCO-TV, Minneapolis, "was a half-hour documentary in the more traditional style," said the jurors. "Starting with the apparent purpose of showing the folks back home how and what their boys were doing in Vietnam, a reporter and a cameraman succeeded in catching in a month a surprisingly complete view of what the war was really like and just what ordinary GI's (particularly what Minnesota boys) thought of it. At the same time it demonstrated what an individual station, even without a sponsor, could achieve in an area few of them thought they had any obligation to explore."
Our Poisoned World - WOOD-TV, Grand Rapids | Dick Cheverton | Herb Thurman
"Our Poisoned World" was presented in five prime-time half hours during January and February 1970 by WOOD-TV, Grand Rapids, Michigan. The jurors said, "The program, sponsored by a local bank, examined all aspects of the environmental crisis as it applied to their city and the Michigan communities adjacent to it. The station volunteered to act as middleman for viewers who wished to make their concern known to legislators. The series ended with an editorial stressing the importance of individual interest and effort and promising to continue environmental coverage on a day-to-day basis. Letters were received from more than two thousand viewers. The stations, during the spring and summer, continued to air an average of four environmental reports a week on its evening news."