1989

60 Minutes | CBS News

Two decades of distinguished reporting that changed the nature of television news have earned "60 Minutes" a place of honor in the annals of broadcast journalism. This path-breaking program did more than just establish the news magazine format for television. In its 20-year existence it has given more time in prime time to investigative pieces, features, fascinating profiles and historic interviews than any other program in the history of television news, all made especially memorable by the distinctive styles of its correspondents over the years --Ed Bradley, Dan Rather, Harry Reasoner, Andy Rooney, Morley Safer, Diane Sawyer and Mike Wallace.

CREDITS

Richard N. Kaplan, Ted Koppel, Roger Goodman, James Walker, Judd Rose, Bill Seamans, Dean Reynolds, Barrie Dunsmore, John Laurence

Nightline: In the Holy Land | ABC News

ABC News devoted an entire week in April 1988 to live "Nightline" broadcasts from Jerusalem on the conflict between Israeli and Palestinians. In an expanded version of its Town Meeting format, "Nightline" broke down political barriers by erecting a fence on a stage in Jerusalem so that a panel of Palestinians would agree to appear on the program at the same time as a panel of Israelis. The audience in the auditorium --half Israeli, half Palestinian-- gathered before dawn to participate in the three-hour, live broadcast that was a breakthrough in public discussions by these adversaries.

CREDITS

Richard N. Kaplan, Ted Koppel, Roger Goodman, James Walker, Judd Rose, Bill Seamans, Dean Reynolds, Barrie Dunsmore, John Laurence

Coverage of the Persian Gulf | CBS News

Allen Pizzey and his camera crew showed incredible tenacity and courage in their sustained coverage of the Iran-Iraq war as it affected shipping and U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. Often under fire, Pizzey followed burning tankers and rescues at sea, once even sounding the May Day call. Pizzey never lost sight of the story --the effects of protracted warfare on seamen in this politically volatile shipping passage-- and he explained it to the viewers of the CBS Evening News in precise, illuminating detail.

CREDITS

Tom Bettag, Bruce Dunning, Peter Schweitzer, Doug Sefton, Allen Pizzey

Looking for Lincoln | KING-TV

Even before the presidential primaries, KING-TV recognized the importance of examining the characters of the 13 major candidates and resourcefully formed a team of seven local stations around the nation to produce revealing portraits of each candidate. KING-TV orchestrated the series and produced biographies of Richard Gebhardt, Robert Dole, Paul Simon and Pierre duPont, as well as the opening and closing pieces for the series. "Looking for Lincoln" is outstanding for the biographical detail it provides and for the teamwork of the seven stations that transcended different network affiliations in pursuit of the story.

CREDITS

Don Varyu, John Wilson, Charlotte Raynor, Bob Simmons, George Snyder, Andy Beers, Mark Anderson, Jerry Hickey, Bill Feinstein, David Williams

A Conversation with Mikhail Gorbachev | NBC News

For its enterprise in securing this one-hour exclusive interview with the Soviet leader, NBC News reaped the rewards of 30 months of pursuing the story. Tom Brokaw’s unprecedented, wide-ranging conversation with Gorbachev in Moscow Nov. 30, 1987, one week before the Reagan-Gorbachev summit talks in Washington, allowed Americans to see Gorbachev in this unusual western-style interview. NBC News consultant Gordon Manning was credited with obtaining the interview exclusively for NBC News.

CREDITS

Tom Brokaw, Gordon Manning

Coverage of the Supreme Court Nominations | NPR

Nina Totenberg's reports on nominations to the Supreme Court, especially the nomination of Judge Douglas Ginsburg, were pivotal in the controversy over whether the personal lives and values of potential justices are important to their role as interpreters of the law. Ms. Totenberg broke the story of Judge Ginsburg's use of marijuana, raising issues of changing social values and credibility with careful perspective under deadline pressure. Her reports were frequent and lengthy, a tribute to the style and journalistic thoroughness of National Public Radio.

CREDITS

Nina Totenberg, legal affairs correspondent

Joseph Campbell and the Power of the Myth | Public Affairs Television

In six hour long conversations with the leading scholar and teacher of mythology, Joseph Campbell, millions of Americans experienced the way the universal themes of mythology and religion illuminate their lives. With Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell providing brilliant anecdotes from different cultures throughout history, viewers gained understanding of their own beliefs. The series expanded the nature of public affairs programming by demonstrating that ideas transcend ideology.

CREDITS

Joan Konner, Alvin H. Perlmutter, Catherine Tatge, Bill Moyers

The Politics of Pollution | WCAX-TV

This five-part series is outstanding in its breadth of research and detail on the sources of acid rain, particularly in the Midwest, and the impact of that pollution on New England. Using extremely effective pictures and natural sound, the series points out the economic impact of cleaning up industrial pollution. The series examines competing political and economic interests, scientific explanations, and the effect on Vermont’s ecology, and leaves the dilemma of acid rain awaiting resolution by Congress.

CREDITS

Marselis Parsons, Steve Larose, Andrew Goodrich

We the Jury | WCVB-TV

It took producer-reporter David Ropeik nearly three years to find a judge, lawyers, defendant and jury willing to let him follow a trial through the eyes and experiences of the sequestered jurors. The result is a stunning and touching hour-long portrait of citizenship, full of mundane acts and emotional tugs as the jurors give up their ordinary lives to consider the evidence and reach a verdict. In this journalistic achievement the story is in the lives of duty-bond Americans, not in the crime.

CREDITS

David Ropeik, Jayne Raphael, Jim O'Callaghan, Zip Bradwell, Alice Daly, Warren Doolin, Robin Fogden, Bob Wilson, Alan Anderson, Steve Colvin, Toby Smith, Bruce Drucker, Mary Driscoll, George Nahas, Stuart J. Rotman, John Mitchell, Charles Kravetz, Emily Rooney, Philip S. Balboni

Investigative Reporting by Erin Hayes WSMV-TV

Erin Hayes consistently demonstrates her ability to tackle stories other journalists shy away from. She took sewage overflows in Nashville seriously, tracing runoffs throughout the region and explaining to her audience both the political and the environmental consequences. In another effort, with an understated style unusual in investigative reporting, she looked into restaurant inspections, and the lack thereof, and raised consumer consciousness as well as governmental response.

CREDITS

Erin Hayes, Alan Griggs

Thurgood Marshall: The Man | WUSA-TV

In this one-hour documentary, Justice Thurgood Marshall speaks about the Supreme Court, the Justice Department, former Attorney General Edwin Meese, and his own lifelong commitment to civil rights. The program distills four exclusive interviews with Justice Marshall by newspaper columnist Carl Rowan and adds perspective with unusual archival footage and interviews with those who knew Marshall at key moments in his career. This broadcast profile by a local station adds significantly to the treasury of interviews with Supreme Court justices.

CREDITS

Carl T. Rowan, Jeanne Bowers, Tyrone Couch, Lageris Bell, Mike Trammell, Tim Deluca, Ron Ling, David Satchell, M. J. Vilardi, Judith Plunkett, Sandra Butler-Jones

For the I-Team | WWOR-TV

Series of reports by the I-Team covering health and safety of children in Jersey City Schools.

CREDITS

Producer: Gary Scurka

Reporter: Joe Collum

Associate Producer: Barbara Gardne

Micki Sellers, Duke Walsh, Donna Goldstein, Deborah Griffin, Rosemary Schimenti, Van Hackett

1988

Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years | WGBH-TV

This six-part landmark series presented on PBS by WGBH, Boston, documents through archival footage -some never before broadcast - and interviews with participants the struggle to make "liberty and justice for all" a reality for black Americans as well as white. The independent production, in development since 1979 and the realization of a 20-year dream of Henry Hampton, executive producer and president of Blackside, Inc., is moving, dramatic and uplifting in its account of America’s second revolution, a struggle still continuing. Among the most significant broadcasts of recent years, it is an important contribution of American television to the nation’s historical understanding.

CREDITS

Henry Hampton, Sheila Bernard, James A. DeVinney, Madison Davis Lacy, Jr., Louis J. Massiah, Thomas Ott, Sam Pollard, Terry Kay Rockefeller, Jacqueline Shearer, Paul Stekler, Lillian Benson, Betty Ciccarelli, Steve Fayer

By His Father's Hands: The Zumwalkts | ABC News

This intimate portrait of Lieut. Elmo Zumwalt III’s fight for victory over cancer is made even more poignant by an ironic twist of fate. His rare cancer is believed to have been caused by Agent Orange, a defoliant used in fighting the Vietnam War by order of his father, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr., commander of U.S. Naval Forces in Vietnam in the 60’s. The strengthened relationship of father and son despite this knowledge is movingly detailed in this highly charged, inspiring piece of television journalism.

CREDITS

Av Westin, Ena Riisna, John Laurence, Hugh Downs, Barbara Walters

48 Hours on Crack Street | CBS News

CBS News mobilized 50 of its top reporters and producers over an August weekend and came away with this award-winning news special. In a first-person, gritty story-telling style, this unblinking, streamside look at drug life in America - from the squalor of New York’s Times Square to business-suited Wall Street and New Jersey’s pristine suburbs - captures the raw reality of the problem that concerns more Americans than either unemployment or world peace. In addition, the success of this team effort breathes new hope into a form many feared was near death: the television documentary. This is riveting and important television, which points the way for the future of longer-format news coverage.

CREDITS

Lance Venardos, Lew Allison, Steve Glauber, William H. Willson, Kyle Good, Ira Sutow, Margery Baker, Jude Dratt, Patrice Fletcher, Joe Halderman, Lori Hillman, Judith Hole, Donna Inserra, Carolyn Kresky, Elena Mannes, Marikay Mead, Maurice Murad, Bill Nieves, George Osterkamp, John Reade, Roxanne Russell, Lisa Sanders, David Schneider, Jane Schulberg, Bill Skane, Nancy Solomon, Howard Stringer, Mary Walsh, Tom Yellin, Roberto Alvarez, Aubrey Barnard, Skip Brand, Ray Bribiesca, Skip Brown, Joe Duncan, Carl Gilman, Alan Hand, Steve Jackson, Julian Krajewski, Keith Kulin, Norman Lloyd, Mike Marriott, Mike McEachern, Pat O'Dell, Art Smith, Steve Smith, Mirek Snopek, David Adams, Bert Canaie, Chris Crummett, Tommy Byrne, Tom Conner, Wayde Duncan, Huxley Galbraith, Anthon Higgins, Otto Kennedy, Brian Lacey, Paul Lederman, Jim Lieu, Tony Long, Martin Lopez, Brian Nolan, Paul Sedia, Martha Smith, Jennifer Snopek, Jim Thale, J. W. Womack, Craig Anderson, Mark Brodie, Ed Danko, Andy Finkelstein, Bob Green, Frank Hodnett, Walt Leiding, Randy Levine, Warren Lustic, Tom McEneny, Celia Michaels, Mark Reilly, Bob Reingold, Jerry Siegel, Andy Soto, Joan Turturro, Wendy Wang, Nora Gerard, Paul Fischer, Amy Bernstein, Louise Colon, Ann Goodman, Sarah Morton, Billy Lee, Ned Steinberg, Penelope W. Ashman, Mary Rosenfeld, Virginia Garity, Bill Loftus, Renee Weinstein, Edd Kalehoff, David Seeger, Joan Richman

Huey Long | WETA-TV & Florentine Films

This documentary about the life and times of the populist Louisiana governor and senator in the 1930’s combines rare and dramatic archival material with interviews of Huey Long's friends and enemies. A presentation of WETA-TV in Washington, D.C., and Louisiana Public Broadcasting, it is the story of an extraordinary man told by an extraordinary filmmaker, Ken Burns.

CREDITS

Producer: Ken Burns

Sauget: City of Shame | KMOV-TV

A serious drinking-and-driving problem was being overlooked in Sauget, Ill., until KMOV broadcast this series of five reports. Sauget, border town to St. Louis, has a population of only 200, yet every weekend it plays host to over 6,000 in its six popular nightspots, where closing is at dawn, many hours later than in neighboring Missouri. KMOV's exposé of the statistically high rate of injurious and fatal auto accidents within two miles of the nightspots disclosed that four of the six bars were owned by the mayor’s nephews, one of whom was the police commissioner. The reports resulted in an overall tightening of police procedures and the creation of sobriety checkpoints. "Sauget: City of Shame" exemplifies well-documented local reporting in the part of a tenacious investigative team.

CREDITS

Reporter: Matt Meagher

Coverage of the AIDS Epidemic | NBC News

Robert Bazell, science correspondent of the first rank, started covering what came to be the AIDS epidemic before it was even identified. His reports over the past five years have dispelled myths and explained with clarity all aspects of this deadly and terrifying disease. His reporting is exemplary science journalism and a model for others.

CREDITS

William Wheatley, Jr., Paul W. Greenberg, Robert Bazell, Carolyn Schatz

Investigative Reporting by Pam Zekman | WBBM-TV

As head of the investigative unit at WBBM-TV since 1981, Pam Zekman’s exposés have not only won her national recognition, but have brought about major reforms in Chicago city services and legislation to protect the public. An investigator’s investigator, Ms. Zekman, with this year’s presentation, receives her third duPont-Columbia Award and continued praise and acclaim.

CREDITS

Pam Zekman, Sandy Bergo, Jack Murphy, Andy Segal, Will Turbow, Don Carruthers, Carlos Monge, John Castaldo, Ken Myszak, Diane Vrlich, Sam Walker, Thomas Bryant, Larry Lacey, Jim Mulroyan, Judy Holpuch, John Zur, Marcia Danits

For the I-Team | WCCO-TV

The nine duPont-Columbia Awards presented over the years to WCCO's investigative reporters are testimony to the ongoing and successful efforts by this medium-market station to make Minneapolis a better place to live. In its role as public watchdog, WCCO this year looked into child protection, mismanagement by the state commissioner of human rights, work-rule abuse by the Department of Public Works and the practice by prosecutors of dismissing assault cases without contacting victims or witnesses. All reports resulted in firings or reforms. The I-Team’s reports are judiciously handled, thoroughly documented and always compelling.

CREDITS

Mike Sullivan, John Lindsay, Al Austin, Steve Eckert, Mary Feidt, Andy Greenspan, Peter Molenda, Dave Bowden, Dave Richards, Kacey Kutzler

SMU Investigation | WFAA-TV

In 1985 the NCAA slapped the wrist of the Southern Methodist University football program for recruitment violations, but it took WFAA's investigation into continued violations to actually put a stop to the corruption that reached as high as the governor's office. In Dallas - where football is to some more serious than oil - WFAA's revelations were not entirely welcome, and the cost to the station was high in personal ties as well as advertising revenues. Integrity combined with excellence of reporting to produce an investigative piece in league with the very best.

CREDITS

Producer: John Sparks

Reporter: Dale Hansen

Jacksonville's Roads: The Deadly Drive Home | WJXT-TV

WJXT deserves high honors for taking the death-on-the-highway story beyond the drunk-driving cause. This one-hour documentary detailed the many other factors contributing to highway and traffic accidents - poor road construction, antiquated guardrails and unyielding utility poles - and informed viewers about what can be done to eliminate some of these booby traps to make driving in Jacksonville less hazardous. It was a superb example of public service programming.

CREDITS

Mel Martin, Nancy Shafran, Shawn Briggs, Tad Cliplef, Deborah Gianoulis, Nancy Rubin, Robyn Sieron, Rob Sweeting, Tom Wills, Judy Brock, Karen Gionet, Melanie Mowry, Paula Shaw, Zina Bauman, Jack Bookout, Joe Burnsed, Larry Dickerson, Ramon Hernandez, Don Flynn, Rick Foley, Erik Kaldor, Gary Todd, Phil Whitley, John Benson, I. Hesley Bostic, Larry Parker, Mal Redington, Angela Whitson

Passing On the Secret of Sexual Abuse WLAP-Radio

This well-produced, well-written documentary interweaving narration and victims' testimony is a fine example of how good local radio can be when a reporter is diligent and talented. WLAP deserves to take pride in this programming, which set a standard for future award consideration.

CREDITS

Reporter: Craig Cheatham

Florida: State of Neglect | WPLG-TV

This seven-part investigation into a Florida state agency uncovered statewide mistreatment and neglect of abused children, the retarded and the elderly, the people it was supposed to protect. As a result of WPLG’s reports, the State Inspector General launched a probe into the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. WPLG’s persistence in getting the facts on this story illustrate the value of broadcast journalism to the community.

CREDITS

Producer: Robert Groves

Reporter: Michele Gillen

1987

The Vanishing Family: Crisis in Black America | CBS News

The statistics about what happened over the past two decades to the once stalwart and steadfast American black family, the backbone of the black community, are shocking and distressing. In an unflinching account that tries to understand why this disintegration started and why it continues, CBS News gives life to the statistics through intimate portraits of young black adults facing the emotional and financial difficulties of single parenthood. With its candor and openness, "The Vanishing Family" may very well be the most important documentary in recent memory.

CREDITS

Ruth C. Streeter, Kate Roth Knull, Arthur Bloom, Walter Leiding, Carolyn M. Cook, Michael Christian, Jeffrey A. Kay, Alan Mack, Alicia Tanz, Anthony D. Sturniolo, Mark Ganguzza, Vernon Cook, Jim Ryan, Myron Bleam, Gil Miller, Jim Rose, Frank Florio, Bill White, Ilene Rosenberg, Kevin Bailey, Mike English, Herman Lang, Neil McCaffrey, Keith Morris, Jeff Pollack, Joe Schwartz, Stan Seiller, Anthony Mirante, Perry Wolff

45/85 | ABC News

These three hours of prime time television document the benchmark events between the years 1945 and 1985, giving viewers a sense of relevance to events that have shaped today’s world. The program realizes its goal of "teleology," that is, making meaningful what has happened in the past 40 years, by use of archival footage, some never before broadcast, interspersed with testimony of more than 125 witnesses, who personalize the events through their stories. It is exquisitely edited, masterfully executed, blockbuster television journalism.

CREDITS

Roger Goodman, Eleanor Prescott, David Bohrman, Edward Hersh, Mark Foley, Av Westin, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Pete Simmons, Denise W. Burke

Frontline: Sue the Doctor? | PBS & Chedd Angier Production Company

This documentary hour dramatically records a patient’s agonizing decision over whether or not to sue the doctor for malpractice. The description of the confrontation between the legal and medical professions and the resulting confusion for the patient, who is unsure from which side the victimization is coming, make for provocative, intelligent television journalism.

CREDITS

Marrie Campbell, David Fanning, Andrew Liebman, Graham Chedd

For Auction: An American Hero | PBS & Drew Associates

The family farmer, legendary hero of rural America, today faces a growing worldwide glut of grain that forces families into bankruptcy and work off the farm. It is an American tragedy that affects us all. Drew Associates has given us the human side of the dismal facts of the farm crisis with this beautifully shot, exquisitely edited, warm and thoughtful documentary.

CREDITS

Robert L. Drew, David Steward, Anne Gorfinkel, Lisa Popitz, Thatcher Drew, Peter Thomas, Marc Curtis, Sidney Reichman

Washington 2000 | KING-TV

This three-hour prime-time special, which involved the entire KING news staff, focuses on the anticipated economic changes and future employment prospects facing Washingtonians. It is worthy and comprehensive public service television that gave KING viewers valuable lessons on how to plan for a brighter future.

CREDITS

Don Varyu, Lisa Yeakel, Leo Greene, Scott LaPlante, Linda Gist, Bill Berg

Tulsa's Golden Missionary | KTUL-TV

In this ten-part series, the industry of a small market station is unmistakable as this seven-month investigation of a Tulsa-based international charity uncovers misdirected funds, exaggerated claims of good works, deceptive fund-raising techniques and favoritism for family and friends. The warning to Tulsa viewers to know more about the charities they choose is invaluable, and KTUL’s watchdogging of such unregulated financial concerns helps keep the need for accountability by such organizations in the forefront.

CREDITS

Tom Doerr, Jim Lyons, Charles Ely

Outstanding Reporting by Erin Hayes KYTV

Working independently and covering subjects ranging from a controversial alcohol treatment program to an informative piece on the learning disability dyslexia. Erin Haynes’s stories represent the kind of thoroughly researched, balanced reporting that the awards were created to honor. Her personal commitment and KYTV’s station commitment to high caliber broadcast journalism merit high praise.

CREDITS

Erin Hayes, Tim Dennis

Investigative Reporting on Nightly News | NBC News

NBC Nightly News meets the challenges and takes the risks involved in assigning reporters to take a closer look at what lies behind and beyond the otherwise everyday story. Even more impressive is the courage shown by its investigative reporters and producers, who face untold dangers in their frontline news gathering for these revelational pieces. The enterprise of reporters like Brian Ross and Mark Nykanen, who regularly uncover corruption and misconduct, is applauded as is NBC News’s commitment to serious, continuing investigative journalism.

CREDITS

William Wheatley, Jr., Ron Bonn, Chuck Collins, Mark Nykanen, Brian Ross

Coverage of the American Raid on Tripoli | NBC Radio News

NBC Radio News gives us spine-chilling, on-the-scene coverage of the American air strike on Libya and the Libyans' reaction. This live, war-zone reportage is courageous, vivid, articulate radio journalism in the best tradition

CREDITS

Correspondent: Fred Kennedy

Afghanistan: The Untold Story | WBZ-TV

Clarence Jones’ and WPLC-TV’s crime reporting, according to jurors, “presented day-to-day crime coverage in a manner which served the community without feeding panic or catering to the desire for sensation. His series on waterfront crime dug deep and ranged wide, giving the necessary cues to a phlegmatic bureaucracy.

CREDITS

Clarence Jones

No Place to Call Home | WCBS-TV

The tragedy of the homeless children growing up in New York City's shabby welfare hotels, where violence and crime are faced daily, is vividly documented in this commendable program. Judiciously yet empathetically, "No Place to Call Home" brings the pain and suffering of the children, victims of parental unemployment, New York's housing shortage, and the crisis of poverty, to bear in this effective and disturbing hour of television.

CREDITS

Executive Producer: Dolores Danska

State of Texas vs. Steven Lynn Fossum WCCO-TV

Finding discrepancies in the testimony of a rape victim, whose eyewitness identification had put a young Minnesotan working in Texas behind bars, WCCO’s investigators decided to do some of their own sleuthing. Eight months and $100,000 later, with mounds of overlooked evidence in hand, the governor of Texas was quickly convinced of the miscarriage of justice in the case of Steven Lynn Fossum and an executive pardon was granted. This is an example of first-class investigative journalism - persevering, thorough and corrective.

CREDITS

Al Austin, Andy Greenspan, Peter Molenda, Mary Feidt, John Lindsay, Mike Benson, Paul Henschel, Jeff Kaufer, Dave Richards, Steve Carlson, Kurt Angell, Leah Anton, Kim LeGrand, Mike Sullivan

Cicero: Community of Controversy WMAQ-TV

This half-hour documentary picks up the saga of a small midwestern working-class town that has historically had problems with race relations and, since the days of Al Capone, with organized crime. This report concentrates on the recent problem with all-night bars that sell sex along with beer. The opposition of an enraged local citizenry to these seemingly authorized businesses encouraged WMAQ investigators to look into suspected mob and municipal government collusion. The investigation resulted in the closing of three of the all-night taverns as well as other overdue reforms.

CREDITS

Carol Marin, Don Moseley, Ed Bartlett, Grant Light, Sandy Bonnell-Malatia, Wendy Frame, Mary Walton, Peg Dwyer, Ken Weisberg, Michael Gamble, Todd Powelson, Irene Ostap, Linda Todhunter, Dennis Wood, Hal Bernstein, Jim MacDonald, Paul Nagaro, John Crispe, Howie Salzman, Ed Cradick, Jerry Ongaro, Robert Wiener

1986

Nightline: South Africa | CBS News

"Nightline," in five broadcasts last March from Johannesburg, did something so simple yet so rare in bridging together for the first time South African government officials and their adversaries and critics to debate apartheid and the social and political structures that support it. In the way that only television can, "Nightline" revealed for viewers the pain, anguish and rage that suffuses the struggles of this divided country. Masterfully executed and exquisitely produced, it was perhaps the most powerful, certainly the most extraordinary, television of the year.

CREDITS

Richard Kaplan, Ted Koppel, Roger Goodman, William Moore, Betsy West, Lionel Chapman, Terry Irving, Steve Lewis, Bill Nicholson, Tara Sonenshine, Bill Freiberger, Steve Alhart, Chris Evans, Gary Boyarsky, Rick Hull, Fabrice Moussus, Henry Bautista, Tommy Doig, Teddy John, Andrew Laurence, Maurice Odello, Gotthard Barth, Donna Rowlinson, Eric Wray, Neil Patterson, Betsy Rosenfield, Robert Jordan, Jenny Ames, Ria Bonthuys. Ina Joubert, Karen McCann, Ted Lawrence, Roy Smithers, Hennie Hartmann, Ronelle Cruywagen, Johann Conradie, Dominique Pitot, Christo Doherty, Alex Pollard, Leon Labuschagne, Angus Clarke, George Von Mollendorf, Victor de Menezes, Alasdair Richards, Ronnie Lennox, Dave Jacobs, Andre Gous, Andre Olivier, J. C. Hibbard, Herman Cloete, Fred Esterhuizen, Riaan Venter, Louis van Sittert, Johan Schultz, Eric Lawrenson, Lucas V. D. Westhuizen, Marius J. van Rensburg, Charl Stevens, Phillip O'Kelly, Naas Prinsloo, Janos Urban, Andre Hattingh, Tommy Thacker, Susan du Plessis, Lesley Street, Neels Phyfer, Rhys Claase, Bruce Jones

Iran: In the Name of God | CNN, Cable News Network and IMAGO, Ltd.

This portrait of the Islamic Republic of Iran, produced by CNN in collaboration with Australian independent filmmakers (IMAGO, Ltd.), offers an historical overview as well as personal accounts of life in a country still emerging from the throes of revolution. Scenes from Iran and are infrequently seen on American television, although that nation’s history is critical to the western world.

CREDITS

Marty Killeen, Sandee Myers, Larry Lamotte, Louise Vance, Christiane Amanpour

Afghanistan: Operation Blackout | CBS Evening News

When the press coverage is prohibited, as it has been for much of the war in Afghanistan, the scene is too often quickly forgotten. However, CBS News persisted and, with the able assistance of freelance cameraman Mike Hoover, kept viewers informed on events in that beleaguered country. These tight, well-written reports, detailing rebel efforts to cripple the capital of Soviet-occupied Afghanistan by destroying power lines en route to the city of Kabul, are to be applauded for once again demonstrating the value of the work done by those who take risks, and overcome obstacles, to keep the public informed.

CREDITS

Mike Hoover

Down for the Count: An Inside Look at Boxing | Chris-Craft Television Productions and Churchill Films on Frontline

This evenhanded close-up examination of a controversial sport under attack is beautifully shot, artfully edited and provocative and enthralling television for partisans on both sides of the controversy.

A Series of Radio Reports on the American Sanctuary Movement | Desert West News, Flagstaff, AZ

This independent news bureau made up of freelance journalists covering concerns central to America's Southwest have demonstrated not only great enterprise but also courage in these solidly researched pieces examining the burgeoning church-based movement to smuggle endangered Central Americans into the U.S. and the infiltration of this movement of federal agents.

Outstanding Reporting by Nancy Montoya | Nancy Montoya and KGUN-TV Tucson, AZ

Local viewers are fortunate to have the well-written, consistently tough reports delivered by Nancy Montoya and KGUN-TV that provide an understanding of the impact of national events on their lives and community.

CREDITS

Nancy Montoya, Jeff Bartlett, Nate Shelton, Charlie Beckner, Chris Moore, Stephen Amen, Tom Gilmer

The Real 'Star Wars' - Defense in Space NBC News

This examination of the political, scientific and military debate behind the Reagan Administration’s proposal to shift U.S. strategic defenses to the high ground of space gets at the real issues of a policy crucial to the future of all Americans. It is an example of responsible and educational broadcast journalism of the highest caliber.

CREDITS

Anthony Potter, William Turque, Marvin Kalb, Patricia Creaghan, Todd C. Norbitz, Anne Boggan, Peter Punzi, E. Sue Elliott, Greg Bertrand, Matty Powers, Daria Bekersky, Charles Kelly, Mary Grace McGeehan, Chris Bell, Chuck Fekete, Frank Gibson, Houston Hall, Henry Kokojan, Lawrence Mitchell, James Watt, Dell Byrne, Angela Fernan, Kevin Hale, Steve Marchand, Linda Ehrmann, Clarence Robinson, Tom Keevins, Max Schindler

Coverage of the MOVE Siege | WCAU-TV Philadelphia, PA

In addition to its substantial backgrounding and follow-up on the MOVE story, WCAU demonstrated a commitment to keeping viewers informed with live, continuous and uninterrupted coverage of the dramatic story as it unfolded on May 13. The confrontation between the radical terrorist group and Philadelphia’s police departments ended in tragedy when 11 persons were killed and scores of families were left homeless after fire destroyed 61 row houses.

CREDITS

Michael Beardsley, Michael Archer, Jay Newman

The Moore Report | WCCO-TV Minneapolis, MN

This highly acclaimed documentary series wins its third duPont-Columbia Silver Baton for continuing to report on timely and controversial issues fairly and creatively. In these hard times for the television documentary, maintaining a tradition of such excellence is not won without challenges, but "The Moore Report" once again demonstrates that hard work and ingenuity pay.

CREDITS

Phillip Moore

Investigation of Dr. Milan Vuitch | WDVM-TV Washington, D.C.

This three-part investigative series uncovered innumerable health code violations and cases of medical malpractice at Laurel Clinic, which had been endangering the public's health and welfare for nearly a decade with the support of taxpayers' money. The watchdog WDVM reports led to the clinic's closing and the revocation of the license of Dr. Vuitch, the physician in charge.

The Brain | WNET-TV New York, NY and PBS

"The Brain" - that most mysterious organ that makes us human - is probed, penetrated, and puzzled over in these eight hours of television that inform and educate while stimulating and inspiring. This series is an important contribution to television’s archives and will be as meaningful to future viewers as it is to today’s

CREDITS

John Heminway, Kerry Herman, Jeri Sopanen, David Hanser, Herbert Forsberg, Michael Lonsdale, Lee Orloff, Richard Patterson, John Fauer, Hal Landen, Konstantin Jekov, Alan Steinheimer, Mary Lance, Kendrick Simmons, Bill Johnson, Tom Mendell, Rick Dior, Jack Sameth, Richard Hutton, Jacqueline Donnet, Marcie Setlow, Paul Marcel Sladkus, Kenneth E. Werner, Bonnie L. Benjamin, Susan Kim, Timothy Gunn, Linda Lilienfeld, Alan Ziring, David Siegel, John Allison, Les Barnum, Robin Snelson, Don Amundson, Jonathan Elias, Scott Elias, Michael Montes, Neil Sandstad, Mary Petruska, John Adams, Rosemary Fishel, Toni Mendell, Michael Goodman, Bill Stephan, Beth Harrison, Victoria Sanders, Meg Praskac, Damian Marrese, Nancy Larsen, Zena Shervin, Kathryn M. Walsh, Pat Roberts, Hilda Kalotkin, Richard Thomas, George Page

1986 Citations

Choice Cuts, WSMV-TV, Nashville, TN

This hard-hitting, thorough investigation into the long history of USDA sanitary code violations by a local meat packer (and station advertiser) exemplifies courage in broadcasting and was a commendable effort to protect the public's health and safety.

A Town Meeting: Iowa's Future, KWWL-TV, Waterloo, IA

This two-hour television forum was broadcast to help Iowans in their struggle to survive the farm crisis that has made profound changes in the state economy. It is exemplary public affairs broadcasting and a recognized service to the community.

1985

Nightline | ABC News

"Nightline" continuing in its tradition of comprehensive coverage of topics as varied as selling of organs for transplants, nuclear winter, divorce, and the Beirut Marine attack, has not only been one of the few survivors in late night news but has made a lasting contribution to television journalism through its innovative handling of complicated topics and tough, solid reporting.

CREDITS

Gen W. Y. Smith, Barry Blechman, Leonard Garment, Arnold Horelick, Walter Slocombe, Richard Steadman, Robert Tucker, Richard D'Amico, Alton Frye, Herb Jacobs, John Kelly, Christopher Makins, John Mason, David Newsom, Samuel Packer, Barry Rubin, Harold Saunders, John Sloan, Samuel Smith, Edward Warner, Judith Gelb, Michael Krepon, Gerry McCarrick, Steven Riskin, Jeanette Gilbert, Leslie H. Gelb, Charles Stone, William Lord, Ted Koppel

US-USSR: A Balance of Powers | ABC News

An even-handed and intelligently presented 10-part series that succeeded in providing viewers with a better understanding of the half-century of complex relations between the two superpowers and the myriad of issues affecting both countries and thus the world.

CREDITS

David Guilbault, Bob Aglow, Amy Entelis, Sally Holm, Steve Jacobs, David Kaplan, John Lower, Charles Stuart, Jonathan Talmadge, Amy Katz, Arte Shamamian, Jan Hopkins, Jay LaMonica, Sylvia Patterson, Rich Rogin, Steven Cain, Richard Chetirko, John Gillen, Tom Gubar, David Harten, Dean Hovell, Henrietta Huehne, John Matejko, Ellen Rooney, Bonnie B. Finkelstein, Donald Gialanella, Mark Trudell

Outstanding Investigative Reporting: Brian Ross and Ira Silverman | NBC News

For 10 years, uncovering corruption and covering breaking news stories have been the steady diet of this enterprising duo, whose journalistic coup this year was the expose' of millionaire financier Robert Vesco’s drug trafficking in the Caribbean.

CREDITS

Correspondent: Brian Ross

Producer: Ira Silverman

60 Minutes: Lenell Geter's in Jail | CBS News

Once again, America’s favorite newsmagazine has demonstrated the importance of substantive investigative journalism and the influential power of the electronic media in this story of a man serving a life sentence for a robbery he did not commit.

CREDITS

Suzanne St. Pierre, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Harry Reasoner, Ed Bradley

Selling the Public Spectrum | KOSU Radio

Looking for a place to profit and proselytize, two ultraconservative religious broadcasting networks threaten to dominate the limited FM frequencies set aside by Congress 50 years ago for noncommercial educational broadcasting. This story, too controversial for many media outlets, was investigated and reported by students at Oklahoma State University's radio station, proving that broadcast excellence depends more on courage and commitment than money and manpower.

CREDITS

Reporter: Jenifer Reynolds

News Director: Don Hoover

Hillside: A Desegregation Story | Suburban Cablevision

This examination of the multitude of problems, from block-busting to reverse discrimination, in implementing a school desegregation plan handed down by state legislators more than a decade ago is distinguished by refreshingly candid on-camera interviews with parents and students and a closeup look at the economics of integration.

CREDITS

Producer: Allan Wolper

Frontline: Mind of a Murderer Documentary Consortium & PBS

Frontline in its first two years has given us week after week some of the very best in documentary television, tackling subjects ranging from black politics in Birmingham to the psychology of a murderer, simultaneously providing a showcase for the important work of independent filmmakers.

CREDITS

Michael Barnes, David Boardman, Neville Frankel, Peter Chapman, Rick Robertson, John Seale, David Myers, George Stephenson, Wayne Sourbeer, Don Martin, Robbie Robinson, Richard Patton, John Vincent, George Goen, Bill Fast, Will Lyman, Ken Hains, Bob Cummins, Clare Douglas, Valerie Patten, Judy Woodruff, Joanna Lu, George Rivera, Elizabeth Arledge, Judy Banks, Micki Griffin, Chas Norton, Frank Lane, Greg MacDonald, Randall Gray, Jay Collier, John L. Sullivan, Margo Garrison, Dan Jones, Francis X. Coakley, Rosanne Scarry, Anne Gaydos, Clint Heitman, Jack Foley, Mason Daring, Martin Brody, Judy Newman, Wilma Hill, Marcy Deveaux, Ellie Epstein, Kelly Palmerone, Marta Schaefer, Eliza Lewis, Kai Fujita, Scot Osterweil, Marrie Campbell, William Grant, Michael Kirk, Louis Wiley, David Fanning

Vietnam: A Television History | WGBH-TV & PBS

These 13 hours of spellbinding, journalistically exemplary television have deservedly been called a landmark in American broadcast journalism and the most important and most compelling documentary series ever made. The power and importance of this series will endure.

CREDITS

Written by Martin Smith, Elizabeth Deane, Richard Ellison, Marilyn Mellowes, Bruce Palling, Judith Vecchione, Austin Hoyt, Andrew Pearson; Directed by Judith Vecchione, Austin Hoyt, Martin Smith, Bruce Palling; Narrated by Will Lyman

The Smell of Money | WJXT-TV

This series of reports about odor pollution in Jacksonville was a call to action, spurring for the first time odor control legislation by city government, the mayor and the Environmental Protection Board. WJXT doggedly stayed with this explosive story through rebroadcasts and updates, which were well-written and thoroughly researched.

CREDITS

Mel Martin, Roberta Gordon, Jerry Levine, Cliff Cohen, Joan Bowditch

Baby Boom: The Pig in the Python WJZ-TV

The 76 million babies born between 1946 and 1964 changed America; their impact on the economy, educational system and job market continues. This documentary, produced by baby boomers, is a humorous and enlightening hour of television about that change.

CREDITS

John Ketcham, James Eaton, Phyllis Ward, Paul Wise

The First Fifty Years: Reflections on US-Soviet Relations | Quest Productions & PBS

This masterfully edited hour interweaving rare archival footage and interviews with American diplomats who made history negotiating with the Soviets, is a judiciously delivered, stimulating history lesson of 50 years of relations between the two superpowers.

CREDITS

Bill Jersey, Frank Cervarich, Pam Moskow, Grace Warnecke, Marlon Riggs, Jaime Kibben, Richard Numeroff, Sam Shore, Chuck Eyler, Rob Bragin, Bahman Samiian, Marlow Hotchkiss, Cynthia Jurs, Michael Litle

1985 Citations

The Blizzard of '84, KFGO, Fargo, ND

The KFGO radio staff met the challenge of an unexpected weekend snowstorm, later named eastern North Dakota's worst blizzard in 40 years, with round-the-clock, open-phone-line coverage, providing essential information from law enforcement agencies and the National Weather Service, life-saving survival tips to stranded motorists and news of the safety of family and friends to those at home.

The Phone Mess, WCBS, New York, NY

This 10-part series of reports demystifying the divestiture of AT&T, a corporate break-up that has affected us all, is distinguished by the clarity and humor with which vast amounts of information are eloquently delivered.

Emergency Call for Help, KDFW-TV, Dallas, TX

These first exclusive reports of the mishandling of a Dallas citizen's call for an ambulance that might have saved his mother's life if his plea had been answered quickly reminded the nation that an emergency medical service call should always be treated as an emergency.

Elevator Rip-Off, Pamela Zekman and WBBM-TV, Chicago, IL

Leading the WBBM investigative unit, Ms. Zekman has once again uncovered systemic corruption, this year by exposing the "loafing" and "payroll cheating" of elevator repair crews and supervisors supposedly working in Chicago Housing Authority buildings where lives have been lost as a result of negligence and monies misspent for 10 years. The reports forced an overall revision of maintenance management.

I-Team, WBZ-TV, Boston, MA

Whether documenting Statehouse shenanigans or the plight of homeless Salvadorans, the WBZ investigative unit informs with intelligence and warmth and sparks corrective action.

Outstanding Metropolitan Reporting, Gabe Pressman, WNBC-TV, New York, NY

Recognized in New York's broadcast journalism community as the "reporter's reporter," Mr. Presman in his more than 30 years as a television newsman has compiled a peerless record of investigative reporting in politics and social issues. His reports, such as this year's "Asylum in the Streets," continue to sensitize viewers through incisive, informative accounts of city life.

Patterns of Practice, WCAX-TV, Burlington, VT

The complicated and hard-to-visualize story of a national problem -- rising medical-care costs -- was given an impressive and interesting local treatment through extensive research and concise writing.

First Camera: Leader LaRouche, NBC News

This portrait of Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. -- the far left-winger turned right-winger -- gives new insight into the political force that one man can wield. Through its well-written, thoroughly researched reporting, it stands out as one of the year's best newsmagazine segments.

1984

60 Minutes: Good Cop, Bad Cop; Honor Thy Children; Go Park It In Tokyo | ABC News

America's favorite news program has now received DuPont-Columbia honors six times for the imaginative and literate features it has been delivering to the American public since 1968. This year three segments dealing with police corruption in Chicago, Amerasian children and the influence of Japan on the U.S. auto industry were selected by the jurors as outstanding.

CREDITS

Executive Producer & Director: Don Hewit

Correspondents: Mike Wallace and Morley Safer

Investigative Reporting: John Camp WBRZ-TV

In two one-hour documentaries about problems in Louisiana’s state bureaucracies, John Camp demonstrates a consistently high level of investigative reporting. "Deep Pockets" uses case studies of accidental victims who collected huge damage claims because attorneys for the state failed to challenge the claims in court. The result cost millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money. In "I'll Drink to That," Camp dissected the practices of Louisiana’s Office of Alcohol Beverage Control and documented mismanagement, bribery and patronage. The station used undercover cameras to disclose that state agents had joined a drinking club, and were spending evenings cruising bars instead of enforcing the law.

CREDITS

News Director: John M. Spain

Reporter: John Camp

Station Manager: Mike Haley

Rape: Face to Face | KCTS-TV

A program of shattering impact that confronted four victims of rape with four rapists. The highly controversial approach undertaken by KCTS and an independent Canadian film maker paid off in insights and increased understanding of a deeply disturbing subject.

CREDITS

Burnill Clark, General Manager; Bill Roxborough, Beth Kaplan, Nicholas Kendall, Marc C. Pingry, Kirk Tougas, Simon Kendall, Paul Baker, Jim Rothermel, Steve Clemans, Zale Dalen, Maggi Briggs, Patricia Costello, Bill Fast, Robert Turner, Bill Nemtin, John Coney

The War Within | KRON-TV

The first and only psychological treatment program developed specifically to meet the needs of the Vietnam veteran is the subject of this superb hour-long documentary. A penetrating look into the interior terrors that some of America's bravest men brought back from combat.

CREDITS

Writer & Reporter: Greg Lyon

Reporter: Jonathan Dann

Cameraman & Editor: Ken Swart

Chris de Faria, David Douglas Duncan, Leslie David, Lou D'Aria, Tom Tokar, Paul Paolicelli, Mike Ferring

The Most Dangerous Game: Nuclear Face-Off in Europe | NPR

The professionalism and dedication to NPR's news staff, five times winners of duPont-Columbia Awards, is again demonstrated by this wide-ranging examination of attitudes toward nuclear proliferation in "the two Germanies", East and West. Idea journalism at its best.

CREDITS

Director of News and Information Programming: Robert Siegel

News Overnight | NBC News

On July 15, 1982, "News Overnight" premiered with a witty and imaginative segment on the eclipse of the moon. In the succeeding 18 months wit and imagination and just plain good reporting made this small-hours news program not only the best post-midnight show on the air but just conceivably the best written and most intelligent TV news anywhere.

CREDITS

Executive Producer: Deborah B. Johnson,

Original Executive Producer: Herb Dudnick

Co-anchors: Linda Ellerbe and Bill Schechner

Cheryl Gould, Gerald Polikoff, Anthony Messuri, Peter Basil, David J. Levens, Bob Mead, Darrell Strong, Philip Wasserman, Daniel Webster, Patrick Trese, Dave Berg, Cynthia Brush, Katharine Field, Kimberly McCarthy, Alan Mohan, Debra Pettit, Cathy Porter, Truus Bos, Ellen J. Harris, Jered Dawaliby, Piera Demichele, Patricia Lewis, Bern Meyer, David Herz, Vic Aiken, Christopher Drake, John Cochran, Mary Laney, Carl Stern, Linda Ellerbee, Bill Schechner, Malin Jennings

Status Reports | ABC World News Tonight

Threlkeld's beat is the world. His "Status Reports" cover everything from grass roots politics to the war in the Falklands, from disaster at the check-out counter to anti-nuclear activists. In every instance the segments demonstrate distinction in the writing and reporting and an impeccable sense of the opportunities and limitations that go along with a daily 30-minute newscast.

CREDITS

Frank Reynolds, Max Robinson, Peter Jennings, Richard Threlkeld, David Brinkley

Cancer Reports | CBS News

Medical reporting, particularly on TV with its space limitations, is a tricky enterprise frequently giving unwarranted hope or discouragement to victims of the disease discussed. This series of reports on latest treatment breakthroughs for the nation's number two killer were distinguished by their care in presentation humanized by cancer patient Drinkwater's personal approach.

CREDITS

Correspondent: Terry Drinkwater

Producer: David Browning

Researcher & Associate Producer: Joyce Ozarchuk

Killing Crime: A Police Cop-Out WBBM-TV

Two decades of history and an all-encompassing investigation into contemporary reality made for an extremely solid and disturbing series on just how well the Chicago police department has been doing its job. The eighth duPont-Columbia Award to WBBM, a station that has demonstrated a continuing commitment to fine journalism

CREDITS

Pam Zekman, Andy Segal, Sandy Bergo, Jack Murphy, Don Carruthers, Ellen Hyker, Rudy Anderson, Art Betts, Skip Brand, Bob Brant, Don Brewster, Bill Brown, Bill Burke, Don Coleman, Rico Garibay, Bob Hammond, Pete Janin, Morris Jones, Jim Latone, Carlos Monge, Jeff Morgan, Gil Munoz, Paul Rodriguez, Jim Ryan, Tom Small, Tom Vlodek, James Williams, Kevin Yokley, Mike Pennella, Noel Ludwig, Lisa Zucker, Kathryn Peterson, Gordon Barkes

Unit 5: The Chicago Police Investigations | WMAQ-TV

A distinguished examination into the honesty and effectiveness of Chicago's police department. Particularly telling were the reports on police brutality and improprieties in keeping investigative files.

CREDITS

Paul Beavers, Peter Karl, Bonnie Van Gilder, Joe Paszczyk, Jean Gilbert, Herb Elliott, Pat Doddy, Bob O'Hearn, Katy Smyser, Elizabeth Schilling, Jim Tolpin, Wanda Whiteside, Eddie Banks, Don Brandon, Bob Canman, Silvio Costales, John Crispe, Ron Doetsch, Krystal Lee, Amatore Mazzacano, Mable Miller, Don Notz, Jerry Ongaro, Tim Ortman, George Peebles, Dwight Samuelson, Dick Smith, Jim Stricklin, Warren Teuber, Jim Whitaker, Bob Wiener, Don Wilson, Paul Young, Elijah Mondy, Jr., Jutta Ennulat, Linda Todhunter, Michael Ballas, Susan Mitchell, Irene Ostap, Jim Taylor

Innocent Shame: The Legacy of Child Sexual Abuse | WSMV-TV

The lifetime trauma to individuals and those near to them growing out of "the corruption of the innocent" was sensitively and skillfully presented in this hour-long examination or what has emerged as a nationwide problem affecting all classes.

CREDITS

Reporter: Valerie Hyman

Photographer: Marcus Harton

Herpes is Forever | WTCN-TV

A subject that might have been both shocking and unpleasant to viewers was presented with thoroughness and taste, patiently dispelling the myths and misconceptions about an apparently incurable disease which afflicts over 20 million Americans.

CREDITS

Reporter: John Bachman

Bob Clark, Gil Amundson, Mike Lundberg, Ron Geiselhart, Alan Golan, Gary Grantwit, Ray Haag, Ed Wedekind, Don Middelstadt, Lawrence W. Johnson, Laurie Boyce

American Survival | Jon Alpert & NBC News

The best and the worst of our times are reflected in these portraits of Americans who struggle for survival. We experience the pain of the gold miner crippled with lung disease, the dilemma of a mother fighting for her family's home, the victimization of innocent citizens sickened by pollution and the loneliness of the homeless people who live in the streets of America. This is television journalism at its most immediate and compelling.

CREDITS

Producer: Jon Alpert

1984 Citations

Cities Afloat, KMOX, St. Louis. MO

The station's round-the-clock coverage of storms and tornadoes that wrought havoc in the St. Louis area and left 37 counties devastated.

First Amendment Issue, WFBG, Altoona, PA

A series of reports on what happened when a county judge excluded the media from jury selection for a trial of a Mafia criminal figure.

They Served with Honor, WMAL, Washington, D.C.

The keystone of extensive coverage of week-long activities in Washington preceding the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Five Faces of Poverty, WRAL, Raleigh, NC

A documentary series on the increasing number of people at the poverty level.

Dioxin: A Special Report, KYTV-TV, Springfield, MO

A historical analysis and change-making report on the poisoning of the Southwest Missouri Ozarks.

A Battle of Minds, WHA-TV, Madison, WI

A report on religious cultists and their de-programmers.

These Troubled Waters, WLEX-TV, Lexington, KY

A report on an environmental health issue -- contamination of water supplies.

Nursing Homes, KPRC-TV, Houston, TX

An investigation into the abuses in nursing homes and flaws in state regulations.

The Flood of '83, KSL-TV, Salt Lake City, UT

A documentary on how local communities were affected by devastating floods and mudslides.

Project Children, WCCO-TV, Minneapolis, MN

A special two-week block of programs -- documentaries, series reports and an audience participation town meeting -- examining the state and future of children of the 80s.

Babies Shouldn't Die, WFSB-TV, Hartford, CT

A total station campaign over a three-week period that addresses causes of infant mortality.

The I-Team, Willie Monroe and KYW-TV, Philadelphia, PA

Investigative news coverage of abuses and mishandling from City Hall to Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board.

he Last Campaign of Lady Jane, WBBM-TV, Chicago, IL

The inside story of former mayor Jane Byrne's unsuccessful campaign for re-election.

A Gift for Serena, WDIV-TV, Detroit, MI

The story of how a nine-year-old child, afflicted with cerebral palsy since birth, learned to talk with the help of a computer.

Closeup: Oh, Tell the World What Happened, ABC-TV

At Sabra and Shatila, more than 700 Palestinian refugees were massacred. This "Closeup" documentary searches for the answers to why the killings occurred, how they happened, and who was responsible.

Bataan: The Forgotten Hell, NBC News

Interviews with Americans who survived the 60 mile, six-day Bataan death march in April 1942 and three-and-a-half years of imprisonment.

Frontline: In Our Water, Meg Switzgable and WGBH-TV

An investigative documentary, five years in the making, that describes how chemically polluted drinking water alters the lives of a family.

1983

World News Roundup | Dallas Townsend & CBS News

For 25 years the voice of Dallas Townsend has meant intelligent, incisive reporting and editing on CBS' durable and distinguished "World News Roundup". A radio newsman since 1942, Townsend has covered 18 political conventions, nine presidential elections, two decades of space exploration, the murders of John F. Kennedy and John Lennon. No other newsman of our day has had a broader acquaintance with news nor communicated it with more economy and precision.

CREDITS

Correspondent: Dallas Townsend

The Economics of Water | KAIT-TV

A declining water table and the soaring demand for what water remains are concerns that Arkansas shares with many other states in the union. KAIT-TV, a two-time DuPont-Columbia winner serving the nation's 176th market, demonstrated once again that a small station can do an outstanding job on a big, complicated and hard-to-communicate subject.

CREDITS

Public Affairs Director: Jack E. Hill

McClelland Care Facility | KMTV-TV

Despite impediments put in their way by authorities and attacks by the principals involved and other local media, reporter Gene Greer and his colleagues stuck with the story of mistreatment of the inmates of a local public care facility through six weeks and 13 investigative reports. Their persistence was justified when the superintendent of the home and two of his staff were dismissed on the recommendations of a grand jury.

CREDITS

Executive Producer: Joe Jordan

Reporter & Producer: Gene Greer

Probe Five | KLS-TV

The revelations of broadcast journalism do not inevitably lead to corrective action. However, the investigative efforts of Probe Five had particularly gratifying results. Worth of note were "Ponzi or Profit?", a five-month effort which finally blew the whistle on a get-rich-quick pyramid scheme which had bilked a thousand residents of Utah and neighboring states of tens of millions of dollars. Another Probe Five success was "The Needy versus the Greedy", which demonstrated how easy it was for unscrupulous citizens to defraud the government via unemployment and food stamp programs and led to a quick restructuring of local agencies.

CREDITS

Executive Producer: Ernie Ford

Reporter & Producer: Martha Jones and Brad White

Human Cargo | WPLG-TV

Unauthorized immigrants have become a major problem in southern Florida. WPLG wins its third DuPont Columbia honor with this five-part inquiry into the victimization of Haitians by their countrymen and the futile efforts of U.S. law enforcement agencies trying to cope with the growing horde of refugees arriving on Florida shores. A clear and disturbing picture of a local, national and international dilemma.

CREDITS

Producer & Photographer: Lance Heflin

Reporter & Producer: Mark Potter

Epidemic! Why Your Kid Is on Drugs WXIA-TV

The use and abuse of drugs and alcohol by American youth is hardly a new subject. However, this major documentary uncovered new and frightening facts and marshalled them in a way that was difficult to ignore. The unblinking cataloguing of cause and effect - including TV's own complicity - sounded an essential warning and reminder to local community and nation alike.

CREDITS

Producers: Steve Byerly and Collin Siedor

Investigative Reporting | KNXT-TV

In the 1981-1982 season KNXT reporters covered thoroughly and resourcefully a host of topics ranging from housing discrimination, alcoholism in Hollywood, misuse of Medicare funds by alcohol treatment programs, barrio youth gangs and the controversial Mexican cancer clinics, to how and why a traffic ticket and a night in a suburban jail ended in death for a promising young black athlete. In many instances their coverage led to corrective government action in the area concerned.

CREDITS

Station Manager: Jonathan Rodgers

Air Florida Crash Coverage | WJLA-TV

Heroism and courage in the wake of tragedy made the grueling footage caught and comented on by cameraman Chester Panzer unique among this year's or any year's chronicles of disaster. Chance gave Panzer a head start on the painful story, which he built on with a sure sense of what is necessary and appropriate in covering such an event.

CREDITS

Photographer: Chester Panzer

Station Manager: Dow Smith

All the King's Horses | WMAQ-TV

Nine months went into the making of this sensitive and inspiring document on the heartbreak and heroism involved in raising and rehabilitating impaired children as represented by a half dozen families associated with Chicago's Misericordia Homes. The program was outstanding proof that broadcasters need not always employ their talents to uncover crime and corruption.

CREDITS

Station Manager: Fred DeMarco

Closeup: The Gene Merchants | ABC-TV

The exploitative potential of a major scientific breakthrough was the primary focus of this brilliant treatment of the promising and dangerous new worlds opened up to the argonauts of genetic engineering. Besides bringing us up to date, the program confronted squarely the profound moral, ethical and religious questions gene engineers and their promoters must face.

CREDITS

Producer: Stephen Fleischman

Viewpoint | ABC-TV

The bravest new TV series of the year, in which ABC regularly gave its critics access to network space to air their grievances. Expertly anchored by Ted Koppel, it responded to the genuine need of TV's self-styled victims and living-room kibitzers to answer back - providing them with the electronic equivalent of an op-ed page and letters-to-the-editor column.

CREDITS

Vice President and Executive in Charge of Production: George Watson

Anchor: Ted Koppel

CBS Reports: People Like Us | CBS-TV

Without shrillness or special pleading, Bill Moyers presented closeups of three Americans and their families for whom recent cutbacks in social programs meant personal disaster. A sobering document for those who felt a drastically modified safety net would continue to catch and support the truly needy.

CREDITS

Producer, Director & Writer: Judy Towers Reemtsma

For Export Only: Pesticides and Pills WNET-TV & Thirteen

Two hours devoted to a controversial topic of urgent importance to America and the countries to which we export those pesticides and medications whose sale is controlled or prohibited within our own borders. The producer pursued his elusive subject over five continents and spent a total of two years in the writing, shooting and editing of this powerful indictment of the indifferent and profit-hungry who make such traffic possible.

CREDITS

Producer, Director & Writer: Robert Richter

Director of Special Projects at WNET/Thirteen: David Loxton

1983 Citations

Assignment '81, KNX, Los Angeles, CA

Among the few remaining regularly scheduled documentary series on local radio, these half-hour reports broadcast in prime "drive time" combined subjects of consequence with sensitive human-scale reporting. Among the topics of local and national concern were the decline of the nursing profession, the housing crisis, immigration reform and civil defense.

The Vietnam Era, KQDS, Duluth, MN

Memories of the only war the nation has fought and lost recollected in tranquility and brought up to date. Getting the local participants, both those who fought the war and fought against it, to recapture and express their feelings was a remarkable and valuable exercise in reconciliation.

Oregon Hurricane, KWIP, Dallas, OR

On the evening of Friday, November 13, 1981, the worst storm in nearly a quarter of a century struck the northwestern United States. KWIP, on the air barely nine months, and with a license permitting it to broadcast daily from 6 a.m. to sunset, went back on the air to warn and inform the residents of Oregon, northern California, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. With one full-time newsperson, it mobilized its staff of fewer than 10 and provided the only continuous coverage of the emergency.

In Retrospect ... Abortion, WHRO, Norfolk, VA

Shrillness has been the usual mode for spokespeople on both sides of the emotion-packed subject of abortion. WHRO in a brief 46 minutes managed to break the subject down to its human components, presenting a series of probing yet tactful interviews with women who looked back -- some with regret, others with relief -- on an experience which still remains one of the principal unresolved human and political dilemmas of the decade.

The Bronco Billy Witness, WJBC, Bloomington, IL

A disk jockey alerts the local authorities of the imminent torching of a night club, which despite his warning is allowed to take place. The story that results, simply and straightforwardly reported, illuminated a major national concern -- why usually law-abiding citizens don't want to become involved in the criminal justice system.

Why Me? & The Front Line, KDIN-TV, Des Moines, IA

The versatility and breadth of interest of one small market operation was clearly demonstrated in these two documentaries: one on the fears, second thoughts and angry confusion which the victims experience following violent crimes; the other on the continuing battle between the nation's farmers and its energy producers who would give preference to the needs of city dwellers and industry.

Year of the Eagle & Cheating Death, WHA-TV, Madison, WI and the Wisconsin Educational Television Network

Visual beauty and sophistication of approach as well as optimism characterized these two documentaries, which took this midwestern station's staff to both coasts in search of its wide-ranging stories: first, the current status of the bald eagle, the nation's symbol, which may be winning the battle against extinction from guns and chemicals; second, the search for an "antidote to death," which could lead to the extension of human life.

Nuclear Waste: The Gulf Coast Time Bomb, WLOX-TV Biloxi, MS

Big news came to this market of fewer than 100,000 homes when the federal government announced the possibility of locating a nuclear waste repository in southern Mississippi. WLOX's response was prompt and thorough, giving the national background of a highly controversial subject and exploring local opinion and possible impact.

I-Team, WCCO-TV, Minneapolis, MN

For the sixth time the news staff of this outstanding station has won the admiration of the duPont-Columbia jurors; in this instance, the work of its newly established I-Team was selected for special praise. Among the stories they handled with distinction were a series on a TV pitchman who sold thousands of dollars worth of unnecessary services to Minnesota home owners, and another on the strange activities of a small town's benefactor who turned out to be a big-time crook.

News Coverage and Investigative Reporting, WTVF-TV, Nashville, TN

Throughout the year, WTVF-TV demonstrated its consistent intention to serve its community, whether it was by doing a multipart series on the relationship between blacks and whites, or by informing parents and commuters of how to cope with the unfamiliar problems presented by a freak snow storm. Among the long list of topics carefully and expertly examined were prison overcrowding, television's influence on children, drunk drivers, integration in the school system, hunger, the police and guns, and teacher burnout.

The Splice of Life, KQED-TV, San Francisco, CA

Genetic engineering and its implications -- good and bad -- for everything from agriculture and human health to the stock market was the lead story on the scientific front for the year. KQED, a leading public broadcasting station, brought to it the intelligence, authority and thoroughness it deserved.

Investigative Reporting, WFAA-TV, Dallas, TX

This outstanding Texas station continued its long history of looking into and correcting misbehavior on the part of Texas politicians and entrepreneurs by coverage of the wildlife, irregularities in state purchasing contracts and misuse of funds raised for the blind. These reports, as well as the excellent "Closeup" series, which pursued such substantial stories as drug and electronics smuggling, substandard prison and jail conditions and the treatment of refugees from San Salvador, led to a third duPont-Columbia honor for WFAA.

No Place Like Home, WNET/THIRTEEN, NY

The nation's elderly population continues to grow, with very few long-range plans being made for the turn of the century, when every fifth person will be over 60. This hour-long documentary, presided over by the 81-year-old Helen Hayes, explored the problem and possible solutions with an admirable lack of the sentimentality and guilt that usually surround this subject.

Closeup: The Oil Game, ABC-TV

It took ABC economics editor Dan Cordtz and the Closeup team a year to sort out the tangle of big oil, big money, politics and attempted regulation, which according to Congressman Albert Gore resulted in "the largest fraud in monetary terms that has ever been committed on the American public." A difficult and controversial subject, ably handed.

ABC Special: FDR, ABC-TV

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ABC mobilized the majority of its news staff and devoted its entire prime-time schedule to a superbly researched and edited profile of one of the most fascinating men in United States history.

60 Minutes: What About the U.N.?, CBS-TV

A particularly excruciating example of bureaucratic ineptitude in facing human suffering was vividly caught in this segment of television's premier magazine show. Ed Bradley reported succinctly and devastatingly on the avoidable tragedy that resulted from the U.N. bungling when famine struck Uganda in the spring of 1980.

The Crisco Kid, Jeanne Wolf and South Carolina Educational Television

A brave attempt to present the excruciating lot of a 10-year-old boy doomed to disfigurement, pain and ultimate death by a rare skin disorder. The half-hour managed to convey how such an affliction affects those suffering from it and those in close association with the victims.

Middletown, Peter Davis and WQED-TV, Pittsburgh, PA

Six years in the making, this six-hour series added up to the human document of the year -- an original, penetrating and sympathetic look at just how middle America deals with religion, sports, marriage, making a living, and politics. A major achievement.

Media Probes: Political Spots, Kit Laybourne, Michael Lemle, and WQED-TV, Pittsburgh, PA

This program on political spots approached its subject with wit and literacy. At the same time, it managed to make the telling social point that American voters are being expertly manipulated by a highly intelligent and cynical fraternity of ad men.

Soldier Girls, Joan Churchill, Nicholas Broomfield and PBS

Boot camp, 12-mile hikes, sadistic sergeants, the subversion of the weak and sensitive: we know it well, only this time the victims of military brutality are women. The result is a stunning and revealing dissection of the military mentality from yet another angle.

1982

America Held Hostage: The Secret Negotiations | ABC News

In over a year of massive media coverage no treatment was more comprehensive or revealing of the events in Tehran than this unprecedented three-hour investigative report, aired twice in the week following the release of the U.S. hostages in Iran.

CREDITS

Robert E. Frye, Executive Producer. Robert Roy, Executive Producer. John W. Lower, Senior Producer. Frank N. Manitzas, Senior Producer. Martin Clancy, Producer. Neil Cunningham, Producer. Jeff Diamond, Producer. Robert Murphy, Producer. Ellen Rossen, Producer. Jan Rifkinson, Direction (Misc.), Post-Production Director. George Orick, Writer. Pierre Salinger, Reporter

Sunday Morning | CBS News, Charles Kuralt

[In 1980] the jurors voted a special citation to a remarkable new program just beginning its weekly run. Once again, they would like to honor this program which is second to none in style, intelligence, imagination, and humanity.

CREDITS

Charles Kuralt, host. Robert Northshield, creator.

CBS Reports: The Defense of the United States | CBS News, Dan Rather

The most expensive documentary project in CBS history may also be its pravest and most important. Presented in prime time on five consecutive nights in June 1981, "The Defense of the U.S." faced squarely the problems that Oppenheimer's invention and an unprecedented trillion-dollar military budget have made paramount to the American people.

CREDITS

Dan Rather, anchor; Howard Stringer, executive producer; Andrew Lack, senior producer; Judy Chricton, Maurice Murad, Craig Leake, producers; Bob Scheiffer, Harry Reasoner, Ed Bradley, Richard Threlkeld, Walter Cronkite, reporters

CLOSEUP: Can't It Be Anyone Else? | ABC News

In the daily fare of TV one sees occasional flashes of great courage in the face of accident and disaster, but seldom has grace under pressure been more vividly illustrated without sentimentality or sensationalism than by the three children afflicted with leukemia who are profiled in the remarkable ABC "Closeup: Can't It Be Anyone Else?"

CREDITS

Bill Couturie, producer; Richard Richter, senior producer of documentaries at ABC.

Hard Choices | KCTS-TV, Dr. Willard Gaylin

Seldom if ever has such a television series set out to consider six such difficult subjects as KCTS Seattle's "Hard Choices". Sex selection, genetic screening, human experimentation, behavior control, death and dying, justice in health care - each topic was considered at length and with remarkable honesty and astuteness. The result was a demonstration of how effective and helpful television can be in the treatment of complex and controversial subjects.

CREDITS

Sandra Clement Walker

Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown | National Public Radio

One of the most remarkable programs of [1982] or any year was NPR's chilling 90-minute "Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown". Expertly culled by writer James Reston Jr. from over 900 hours of tapes found in the Guyana jungle after the mass murder and suicide of cult leader Jim Jones's followers, the documentary was aired even as NPR was threatened with drastic cutbacks in government funding. It gave one more demonstration of the value of this small, intensely dedicated organization to the nation's journalism.

CREDITS

Ishmael Reed, Philip Zimbardo, James Reston, Jr., Bill Moyers, James Reston, Jr., Noah Adams, Jerry Calkins, Gary Covino, Skip Pizzi, Flawn Williams, Kit Watkins, Deborah Amos, Barbara Cohen

Six O'Clock and All's Well | Robert Spencer and WWTW-TV Chicago, IL

Probing behind the scenes at the top-rated New York City news program, this documentary examines the processes and values of contemporary broadcast journalism. Through interviews with station staff and dissections of story coverage, a candid portrait emerges of America's primary news source, the `Six O'Clock News' program.

CREDITS

Robert Spencer

Election Night Coverage | WBBM-TV Chicago, IL

Knowledgable, alert, resourceful, intelligent, humorous - all these adjectives could be applied to the election night coverage of Bill Kurtis, Walter Jacobson and the team at WBBM-TV Chicago. It was another example of the quality attention paid to news and public affairs by one of the nation's foremost news stations.

CREDITS

Peter Lund

The Moore Report | WCCO-TV Minneapolis, MN, Dave Moore

Now in its fourth year, the WCOO-TV, Minneapolis, "Moore Report" can seem to do very little wrong. Among the outstanding hours presented during the 1980-81 season were "The Quiet Crisis" concerning water quality in "the land of 10,000 lakes", "You've Come a Long Way, Maybe" on women's rights, "Fear and Present Danger" on crime and the survivalist movement, and particularly "One Nation Under God" which tellingly delineated the disquieting implications of the combination of politics and fundamentalist Christianity.

CREDITS

David Moore, Tom Doar.

World | WGBH-TV Boston, MA

In its fourth season WGBH's "World" aired such outstanding segments as "The Red Army", a comparison of U.S. and Russian military might, "No More Mountains: The Story of Hmong", an examination of Laos tribesmen transplanted to the U.S., and "Against Wind and Tide: A Cuban Odyssey", a remarkable essay on the 1980 exodus from Castro's Cuba.

CREDITS

David Fanning.

The Billion Dollar Ghetto | WPLG-TV Miami, FL

In the fall of 1980 the I-Team of station WPLG-TV Miami aired a 10-part series which revealed to its viewers how in a brief decade a billion dollars in federal funds intended to benefit local minorities had been frittered away. The 10 segments aired on a nightly newscast totaled 90 minutes and were a remarkable example of reportorial enterprise and management commitment.

CREDITS

Clarence Jones, reporter; Lance Heflin, producer photographer, Melissa Malkovich, producer, Joe Bergantino, reporter.

The Day After Trinity | KTEH-TV San Jose, CA and John Else

Since 1945 the central fact of modern warfare has been the atomic bomb. How this terrible weapon came to be and what its creation meant to its makers, most notably J. Robert Oppenheimer, is conveyed with fascinating precision by Jon Else's 90-minute documentary "The Day After Trinity".

CREDITS

Jon Else, Tom McDonough, Maynard E. Orme.

1982 Citations

The Deadly Winds of War, KUED-TV Salt Lake City

Just 12 years ago the jurors voted an award to NBC's pioneering TV magazine "First Tuesday" for its stinging essay on chemical biological warfare. Over a decade later a local station, KUED, Salt Lake City, returned to the same subject with telling and disturbing results.

Credits: Michael Kendall

Vengeance or Justice, WHAS Radio, Louisville

The U.S. system of justive had reeceived its share of criticism, most of it deserved. In "Vengeance or Justice?" radio station WHAS, Louisville, whittled matters down to the case of one black man in a small Kentucky town and how he happened to get a two-year jail sentence for a minor offense. An unusual and admirable example of attention to the single citizen whose case has larger implications.

Credits: John Shumway

Kelly Air Force Base, WFAA-TV Dallas

One of the largest Air Force Installations in the country, the Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, will probably never be the same thanks to an 11-part series which aired on WFAA in the fall of 1980. Health and safety hazards, discrimination, inadequate secuirty, all were addressed and upgraded following WFAA's wide-ranging investigation.

Credits: Charles Duncan

Until We Say Goodbye, Paul and Holly Fine and WJLA-TV, Washington, D.C.

Death and dying have been given increasing attention on radio and television in recent years. However, there have been few programs as sensitive and eloquent in the treatment of this forbidding subject than WJLA's "Until We Say Goodbye," 90 minutes dealing with the hospice movement in the U.S. and abroad.

Credits: Paul and Holly Fine

I Remember Harlem, William Miles and WNET-TV New York

To catch the authentic spirit and voice, the look, sound and feel of a place is a challenge to any artist. William Miles in his four-part essay, "I Remember Harlem," succeeded in bringing a unique community to vibrant life.

Credits: William Miles

The First Amendment Project, WCBS-TV New York

For three weeks in June 1981, WCBS, New York City turned its attention and resources to a consideration of the First Amendment. Through a series of editorials and special features it spotlighted such current and compelling concerns as shield laws, book banning, confidential sources and the regulation of journalists.

Credits: Ed Joyce

Gorilla, National Geographic Society and WQED-TV, Pittsburgh

Wars and power plays are not the only reasons for broadcast journalists to go abroad. Occasionally, as in the fascinating National Geographic Special, "Gorilla," there is a gentler but no less interesting story to be told. For examining the present and possible future of one of nature's most magnificent and appealing creatures with great sensitivity and understanding, the jurors have voted a special citation to The National Geographic Society and Pittsburgh's WQED-TV.

Credits: Pat Northtrop, Thomas Madigan

CBS Reports: The Saudis, CBS-TV

Saudi Arabia has long seemed an inscrutable, sometimes shocking and exasperating place to Americans. CBS's remarkable documentary, "The Saudis" penetrated and illuminated withot simplifying one of the most important and poorly understood nations in the modern world."

Credits: Howard Stringer, Maurice Murad, Ed Bradley

Inside Afghanistan, NBC-TV

Even more difficult of access and more important to the immediate policies of the U.S. than Arabia was the embattled mountain kingdom of Afghanistan. Betsy Aaron leaped a double barrier, as a woman and an American, when she crossed with producer Joe DeCola forbidden frontiers and entered this primitive macho nation.

Credits: Betsy Aaron. Joe Decola

1981

The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage ABC News

The season's big story was unquestionably Iran and the taking of the American hostages. Although all three networks gave this disturbing event exhaustive coverage, ABC was the one that chose to extend its network schedule to accommodate unprecedented public concern. Furthermore, after the Iran story subsided, the late-evening time slot was retained for a half-hour news program, the first major advance in evening newscasting on the commercial networks in nearly two decades.

CREDITS

Frank Reynolds, Bill Wordham, Barrie Dunsmore, Greg Dobbs, Tim O'Brien, Jules Bergman

The Battle of Westlands | KTEH-TV

The takeover of the American family farm by agribusiness is one of recent history’s most significant and disturbing stories. "The Battle of Westlands" described this highly charged confrontation between the large and the small and its broader human and governmental ramifications with admirable fairness and clarity.

CREDITS

Jon Else, Michael Anderson, Stan McInturf, Alan Clark, Philip Greene, John Brumbaugh, Agamemnon Andrianos, David Dobkin, Joan Musante, Nelson Stoll, Irving Saraf, Robert Shoup, Kris Johnson, Ed Bogas, James Shideler, Anita Silvers, Graham Wilson, Rick Rodriguez, Peter Baker

Blacks in America: With All Deliberate Speed? | CBS News

Twenty-five years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, "CBS Reports" sent reporter Ed Bradley to Mississippi and to his home town of Philadelphia to investigate the current status of desegregation in the north and south. The resulting two prime-time hours, "Blacks in America: With All Deliberate Speed?" were distinguished and disturbing television.

CREDITS

Correspondent: Ed Bradley

I-Team Investigations | Group W and KYW-TV, Philadephia, PA; WBZ-TV, Boston, MA; WJZ-TV

Three years ago, Group W’s Pat Polillo established his first I-Team at WBZ-TV, Boston. The "I" stood for "investigative" and the "I-Team’s first effort on political skullduggery in the Bay state took six months to research and occupied 36 minutes at the top of the local newscast. Since then group W has established I-Teams at all five of its stations. This year the submissions from I-Teams at KYW-TV, Philadelphia, and WJZ-TV, Baltimore, as well as those from WBZ-TV, Boston, earned them all Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award.

CREDITS

Wally Roche, David Bryan, Marge Pala, Tony Lame, Ti-Hua Chang, John Terenzio

William Faulkner: A Life on Paper Mississippi Center for Educational Television

To capture the intensely private life of a great writer is a task that filmmakers have frequently set themselves and rarely accomplished. An outstanding exception was "William Faulkner: A Life on Paper."

CREDITS

Walt Lowe, A. I. Bezzerides, A. J. Jaeger, Sandra W. Bradley, Ray Haney, George H. Wolfe, Carvel Collins, Joseph Blotner, Cleanth Brooks, Panthea Broughton, Curtis Davis, Shelby Foote, Evans Harrington, Louis D. Rubin, Jr., Lewis P. Simpson, Ben Wasson, Larry Couzens, Joe Akin, Rob Cooper, Gilbert Dassonville, Ludwig Goon, George Johnson, J. Chris McGuire, Ben Tubb, Robert Squier, Ed Grey, Philip Holahan, Jeff Kimbal, Joel Markowitz, Phil Swetz, Nino Celano, Mike Wilson, Robert Cooper, Ron Yoshida, Nelson Funk, Stephanie Bobo, Julie P. Davis, Judith Couzens, Mona Britt, Steve Brown, Cheri Burney, Ken Davis, Gene Ericson, Steve Kelly, Jon Mallard, D. W. Miller, Dale McIntire, Larry Thomas

All Things Considered and Morning Edition | NPR

To its exemplary early evening series, "All Things Considered," National Public Radio has added "Morning Edition," a two-hour program equally imaginative and resourceful in its handling of news and public affairs. This three-and-a-half-hour daily commitment to quality journalism, the most intensive in network broadcasting, has earned National Public Radio its second Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award.

CREDITS

News Director: Barbara Cohen

Producer: Christopher Koch, Frank Fitzmaurice

Picasso: A Painter's Diary | Perry Miller Adato & WNET-TV

Watch Here.

Part 1 of Picasso: A Painter’s Diary profiles the life and work of Pablo Picasso from the age of fourteen when he qualified for advanced classes at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona, through his influence by the post-impressionists in Paris at nineteen, to the somber Blue Period and finally to the more lyrical Rose Period. Observances and remembrances are offered from friends, family, and Picasso himself. Part 2: The personal and professional life of Pablo Picasso, shown through his work and his own comments and those of his family and friends. Part 3: Covers Picasso career from his Paris paintings on the eve of World War II through his construction sculpture after the liberation to the works he created up to the end of his life. He comments on his prodigious output: "I love art as the only end of my life."

CREDITS

Producer/Director: Perry Miller Adato

Writer: Jean-Claude van Itallie

Editor: Eugene Marner

Joan Robinson: One Woman's Story Red Cloud Productions & WGBY-TV

Death and dying, until recently virtually taboo as subjects for journalists, are now commonplace in print and on the air. There was nothing commonplace, however, about "Joan Robinson: One Woman’s Story," an unflinching two-and-a-half-hour account of one woman’s heroic battle with cancer.

CREDITS

Mary Feldhaus-Weber, Jon Child, Christine M. Herbes, Mavis Lyons Smull, Moe Shore, Dan Eisenberg, Will Lehr, Ruth Lockwood, Sally Azimat Schreiber, Irene Chukiman, flyn Donovan, Mark Lapore, Carol Markin, Brad Nathanson, David Phoenix, Kaesan Tsaing, Andrea Williams, Christine Allen, Sandra L. Bertman, Lorraine L. Hunt, William Fischer, M.D., Robert E. Neale, Thomas J. Smith, M.D., Mila R. Tecala, Martha Wood, Bennett S. Gurian, M.D., Jo Ivey Boufford, M.D., Jon Child, Kevin Burkem, David Vogt, Ron Blau, Abby Child, Daryl Desmond, Desmond E. Desmond, Brian Heller, Will Lehr, Janet McFadden, David Phoenix, Sonia Sones, Dan Seeger, Andrea Williams, Susan Woll, Lee Dichter, A. Bestor Gram, Charles Meyers, P. K. Smith, Andrea Williams, Dorothy Howard, Vianna Heath, Dona Sommers, Lynda Morgenroth, Lorna J. M. Reese, Tim Holt, Dennis Dunbar, Chip Adams, Bob Birkett, Tom Saylor, Len Scagel, Bunny Olenick, Greg Harney

CBS Reports: Teddy | Roger Mudd & CBS News

Because of the equal time requirements of broadcast law, important political profiles are seldom put on the air. Last season, on the eve of Senator Edward Kennedy’s presidential campaign, "CBS Reports" broadcast a full-scale portrait which had incalculable effect on the ensuing primary battles. Roger Mudd’s central interview was unusually effective and revealing television.

CREDITS

Andrew Lack, Roger Mudd, Joseph Zigman, Joseph Fackovec, Bob Peterson, Chuck Levey, Greg Cooke, Charles Franks, William Yates, Bob Rogow, James Camery, Teresa Jo Styles, Dennis Blakeley, Gene Garry, Terry Robinson, Joe Russo, Tony Cacioppo, Howard Stringer

White Paper: If Japan Can... Why Can't We? | Reuven Frank & NBC News

Given the fact that America is the greatest industrial nation in history, the number of network documentaries addressing the business of big business has remained remarkably low. One program which took on the U.S. economy and some of its shortcomings -- and made of them fascinating TV fare -- was, "If Japan Can ... Why Can't We?"

CREDITS

Executive Producer: Rueven Frank

Producer: Clare Crawford-Mason

Perspectives | Walter Jacobson and WBBM-TV

Editorial comment has a long and distinguished tradition on radio and TV, although in recent seasons the individual commentator seems to have gone into eclipse. One eloquent and outspoken exception is Walter Jacobson, whose acid pronouncements are heard regularly on WBBM-TV, Chicago.

CREDITS

Walter Jacobson

The Accident Swindlers | WLS-TV & Chicago Sun-Times

It is not often that the news department of a TV station joins hands with its local print competition to research a major story. One such partnership which paid off brilliantly was that between WLS-TV and the Chicago Sun-Times resulting in "The Accidental Swindlers," an expose of insurance racketeers which had both local and national significance.

CREDITS

Chief Reporter: Peter Karl

Assistant City Editor: Pam Zekman

1981 Citations

The Moore Report, WCCO-TV, Minneapolis

In the past dozen years, WCCO-TV, Minneapolis, has been voted three awards and one citation by the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University jurors for its documentaries, including its long-lived monthly documentary series, "The Moore Report." This year, WCCO-TV has been singled out for the fifth time and the "Moore Report" for the third for a season which included outstanding reports on such wide-ranging subjects as food conglomerates and religious cults.

Credits: Dave Moore, host & narrator

Downhill Dollars, WAST-TV Albany

Covering the Olympics is a story the national networks do every four years and, when the political situation permits, do magnificently. What goes on behind the scenes has received less attention. Last season, WAST-TV, Albany, went to Lake Placid to look into the backstage management of the 1980 winter Olympics. The resulting story, "Downhill Dollars," was a prime example of local broadcast journalism initiative, investigation and expertise.

Credits: Robert Riggs, reporter. John Basko, photographer

Kelly Air Force Base, WFAA-TV Dallas

One of the largest Air Force Installations in the country, the Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, will probably never be the same thanks to an 11-part series which aired on WFAA in the fall of 1980. Health and safety hazards, discrimination, inadequate security — all were addressed and upgraded following WFAA's wide-ranging investigation.

Credits: Charles Duncan

Denise, WCVB-TV, Needham

We have been told often that a brutal and heartbreaking childhood leads to brutality and heartbreak in subsequent adult life. Seldom has this grim lesson been more vividly conveyed than in the tragic story of Denise Gallison.

Credits: Philip Balboni

Nova: A Plague on Our Children, WGBH-TV, Boston

Humanity's on-again, off-again romance with chemistry and its unpredictable results has turned out to be one of the cliff-hangers of the century. A particularly lucid and compelling account of the mixed blessings delivered by our modern technology was Robert Richter's and WGBH-TV, Boston's, "Nova: A Plague on Our Children."

Credits: Robert Richter, producer. John Mansfield, executive producer.

Independent Focus: With Babies and Banners

The juxtaposition of historic footage with the real-life participants half a century later is a technique that has been used by TV documentarians, but seldom with more rousing effect than in WNET/13, New York's, "Independent Focus" Production of Lorraine Gray's "With Babies and Banners," a spirited recollection of the great General Motors strike of 1936 and the Women's Emergency Brigade.

Credits: Lorraine Gray

Baby Formula: The Hidden Dangers, WRC-TV, Washington

Each year there are a few fortunate broadcast journalists who have the satisfaction of seeing their work have an immediate and positive effect. This year, reporter Lea Thompson was one who accomplished the miracle of moving a sluggish bureaucracy to fast action.

Credits: Lea Thompson

KKK: The Wizards at Odds, WSM-TV, Nashville

The recent resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan is a nationwide phenomenon, and one that can only be viewed with alarm. One of the first local broadcasters to recognize its significance and report on it at length was WSM-TV, Nashville. For their level-headed treatment of an incendiary subject, the jurors voted a special citation to Alan Griggs and WSM-TV, Nashville, for "KKK: The Wizards at Odds."

Credits: Alan Griggs, reporter

Directions, ABC-TV

Marcos and the Philippines, pre-revolutionary Honduras, a gentle Mexican bishop, the Jews of Danzig -- the scope of ABC-TV's Directions is broad, its probing deep. This Sunday half hour is one of the oldest continuous public affairs series on the air and one of the bravest and best.

Credits: Thomas Wolf

Closeup: This Shattered Land, ABC-TV

The saga of Cambodia in the last decade is one of the most painful and complex in recent history. For its astute portrayal of cynical politics and the resulting human agony, the jurors voted a citation of excellence to ABC's "Closeup: This Shattered Land."

Credits: Phil Lewis, Jim Laurie, Claes Bratt, Yasutsune Hirashiki, Naoki Mabuchi, Jerry Klein, Nils Rasmussen

Campaign '80, CBS-TV

The campaign was just revving u when the judging for this year's awards began, but already CBS' "Campaign '80" had distinguished itself by its wry and persistent pursuit of primary campaigners and their shenanigans.

Credits: Burton Benjamin, Ed Bradley

CBS Magazine, CBS-TV

Traditionally, daytime network television has been the haunt of soap operas and game shows. A distinguished exception is one of the first and certainly one of the best TV magazines on the air. Broadcast since 1974, "CBS Magazine" delivers consistently challenging TV essays to its late morning audiences.

Credits: Grace Diekhaus, executive producer. Sharron Lovejoy, editor and anchor.

1980

Closeup | ABC News

From what they considered the season’s most outstanding documentary series, ABC News’s "Closeup," the jurors selected their eloquent presentation of one community’s struggle with a growing nationwide problem. Others in this winning sequence included "The Shooting of Big Man," "The Killing Ground" and "Asbestos: the Way to Dusty Death," all compelling treatments of important subjects.

CREDITS

Richard Gerdau, Brit Hume, Linda Abrams, Michael Connor, Walter Essenfeld, Jim Flanagan, Janey Cristenfeld, Ellen Rooney, Dick Roy, Chuck Barbee, Greg Andracke, Jess Nadelman, Marguerite Cooke, Patrick Marz, Richard Richter, Pamela Hill

Outstanding Reporting: Bill Moyers | CBS News & WNET-TV

Occasionally in the decade Columbia assumed responsibility for the Alfred I. duPont Awards in, an individual has been singled out for his contribution to the high standards and well-being of broadcast journalism as a whole. This year, which Bill Moyers split between CBS and Public Television with equally distinguished results in both camps, convinced the jurors that the time had come again to honor a highly effective and scrupulously honest broadcast journalist. A duPont Award is given to Bill Moyers with particular attention to his splendid work for "CBS Reports," his news specials on WNET-TV and his own weekly "Bill Moyers’ Journal."

CREDITS

Bill Moyers, Tom Spain, Maurice Murad, Peter Schweitzer, Walter Helmuth, Joanne Burke, Philip Gleason, Elena Talton Hineck, Anna Tay-Jones, Terry Robinson, Joe Russo, Tony Cacioppo, Howard Stringer

60 Minutes: The Boat People | CBS News

In its continuing struggle just to keep up, TV’s memory sometimes seems distressingly short. In contrast to that general forgetfulness was the moving follow-up to the "Living Room War" contained in "CBS Reports-The Boat People."

CREDITS

Producer:Andrew Lack

Reporter: Ed Bradley

Howard Stringer, Tom Yellin, Joseph Fackovec, Greg Cooke, Ian Wilson, Gene Garry, James Camery, Hugo Van Es, Terry Robinson, Tom Maniaci, Joe Russo, Alisse Rothenberg, Tony Cacioppo

Do I Look Like I Want to Die? | KCTS-TV

The arguments for nuclear power, pro and con, are familiar media fare. To get a new perspective, KCTS, Seattle, went to Hanford, Wash., a town dependent on the nuclear age for its living, and staged a no-holds-barred debate between nuclear antagonists Ralph Nader and Dr. Ralph Lapp. The result: "Do I Look Like I Want to Die?" was voted a duPont-Columbia Award.

CREDITS

Producer, director & Writer: Michael Kirk

Clouds of Doubt | KUTV-TV

Thanks to the events at Three Mile Island, the hazards of the nuclear age stood out in sharp relief as never before. No one caught these details with more clarity and justified concern than KUTV, Salt Lake City, in its documentary on the long-term effects of atom testing in its own region.

CREDITS

Karl Idsvoog, Lucky Severson, Mike Youngren

The Air Space - How Safe? | KXL Radio

Disasters in San Diego and Chicago focused attention on the nation’s air transport and those responsible for its safe conduct. In the broadcast coverage that followed, KXL Radio, Portland, Ore., in a 25-part series not only described the peril in its own community but prompted action to correct it.

CREDITS

News Director: Brian Jennings

World/Inside Europe: F-16 Sale of the Century | WGBH-TV

Big business, particularly of the multi-national variety, seldom gets more than cursory attention from the broadcast media. An outstanding exception was "Inside Europe: F-16 Sale of the Century," a detailed, clear-cut delineation of one of the biggest, most inscrutable businesses of them all, the global traffic in arms.

CREDITS

Reporter: Andrew Cockburn

Producer: David Boulton

John Laurence, Mike Thomson, Henry Nield, Harry Brookes, John Whitworth, Richard King, Ian Moo-Young, Ray Frawley, Brian Tagg, John Sheppard, Roger Graef, Judith Vecchione, David Fanning

An American Ism: Joe McCarthy. WHA-TV Madison, Catalyst Films & Wisconsin Educational Television Network

For bringing new understanding and significance to a man who had received more than his share of notoriety and who to some may have seemed better forgotten.

CREDITS

Executive Producer: Carol Cotter

Executive Director: Tony Moe

Glen Silber

KDFW-TV, Dallas for investigative Reporting

Outstanding series on "Illegal Aliens," "Children Having Children" and "Who Is Raising the Kids?" were just a few of the many excellent investigations aired during the past year by KDFW-TV, Dallas. For the consistently high quality of these reports and their sensitivity to the needs of the community the jurors have voted a duPont-Columbia Award.

CREDITS

John McCrory, Ed Shellhorn, Bill Brown, Rochelle Brown, Dick Johnson

Second to None? | ABC News

Stuffing a hundred pounds of news into a one-pound sack, as Walter Cronkite has put it, continues the common daily lot of the network TV newscasts. ABC’s "World News Tonight" bucked the trend by allotting 11 substantial segments to its outstanding examination of Salt II, its background and its prospects, entitled "Second to None?"

CREDITS

Ted Koppel, Mike von Fremd, Sam Brooks, Charles Stone, Jay LaMonica, Steve Malis, Gene Brandus

60 Minutes | CBS News

In the judgement of the duPont-Columbia jurors, "60 Minutes" has maintained the high standards it set for itself 11 years ago and has earned the praise and has established itself as the most successful non-entertainment program in TV history. For the third time the jurors have voted honors to CBS New's distinguished series "60 minutes".

CREDITS

Marion Goldin

1980 Citations

Northwest Illustrated, KOIN-TV, Portland

Of the dozens of local magazine shows which have sprouted up in recent years from coast to coast, the duPont jurors would like to cite KOIN-TV's "Northwest Illustrated" for the breadth and depth of the features it presents to its viewers in Portland, Ore.

Credits: Don Butler, executive producer

Tattooed Tears, KQED-TV, San Francisco

In some instances crime is accompanied by punishment. How appropriate are the punishments imposed by modern American justice was a question that was pursued with unwavering realism by Joan Churchill, Nicholas Broomfield and KQED-TV, San Francisco, whose "Tattooed Tears was voted a special citation.

Credits: Joan Churchill, producer. Nicholas Broomfield, producer.

Power Play, KTCA/KTCI-TV, St. Paul

The jurors voted a special citation to KTCA/KTCI-TV, St. Paul, for its "Power Play," a vivid picture of high-voltage power lines, another of the mixed blessings an advancing technology has bestowed on the American people.

Credits: Andrew Driscoll, producer. Jim Russell, director of public affairs.

Three Mile Island: Seven Days of Fear, KYW Radio, Philadelphia

For its evenhanded, yet deeply perceptive treatment of one of the year's most difficult subjects, a special citation goes to KYW Radio, Philadelphia, for "Three Mile Island: Seven Days of Fear."

Credits: Richard Maloney, writer and narrator

Investigative Reporting by KYW-TV, Philadelphia and the I Team

Much of the nation's crime has nothing to do with violence and death. For its indefatigable pursuit of the less lurid but even more prevalent type of workaday wrongdoing that victimizes us all, a special citation was voted by the jurors to the KYW-TV, Philadelphia I Team.

Credits: Carolyn Wean, news director

A Death in the Family, WCCO-TV, Minneapolis

For one of those rare TV programs that tells TV viewers a few disquieting truths about their addiction, a citation goes to WCCO-TV, Minneapolis, for "A Death in the Family."

Credits: Jim Hayden, writer and producer

Epitaph for Mom, WHIO-TV, Dayton

The death of a parent is a universal experience which in every instance is unique. For catching that double quality with gentleness and accuracy, the jurors voted a citation to Martha Dunsky and WHIO-TV, Dayton for "Epitaph for Mom"

Credits: Martha Dunsky, producer

Word is Out, WNET-TV, New York & Mariposa Film Group

Presenting a minority without condescension or special pleading, sentimentality or defiance is a difficult feat that was achieved with distinction in "Word is Out," a head-on encounter with the nation's gay community.

Credits: Peter Adair, producer. Veronica Selver, producer. Lucy Massie Phenix, producer. Andrew Brown, producer, director. Robert Epstein, producer, director. Nancy Adair, associate producer, director.

Politics of Paranoia: Jim Jones and the People's Temple, WNET-TV, New York

Sometimes it is required of broadcast newspeople to speak about the unspeakable. For its expert handling of such a subject in, "Politics of Paranoia: Jim Jones and the People's Temple," the jurors voted a citation to D.I.R. Broadcasting.

Credits: Robert Meyrowitz, Peter Kauff

What If You Couldn't Read?, Dorothy Tod and the Vermont Council on the Humanities and Public Issues

One man's quiet, courageous fight against a humiliating handicap, illiteracy, was beautifully portrayed by "What If You Couldn't Read?" the jurors have voted a citation to Dorothy Tod and the Vermont Council on the Humanities and Public Issues.

Credits: Dorothy Tod, writer, producer, editor. Victor Swenson, executive director. Alan Dater, cameraman.

1968, CBS News

A citation to CBS News for "1968," a painful and important year, which was evoked and put into unflinching perspective in two crackling hours.

Credits: Shareen Brysac, producer.

Sunday Morning, CBS News

A new series came on the air late in the period under consideration but nonetheless managed in a few weeks to bring liveliness, imagination, thoroughness and originality to a whole new corner of the TV schedule. For its enthusiasm, thoughfulness and catholicity of taste, the duPont jurors have voted a citation to CBS' "Sunday Morning."

Credits: Robert Northshield, executive producer