Peabody Awards Winners Include Watchmen, Stranger Things 3, And The Simpsons

The Peabody Awards honor the most compelling and empowering stories released in broadcast and digital media every year, and now we have the full list of 2019 award winners, which includes some familiar faces. Amongst the winners are beloved shows like Stranger Things, The Simpsons, and HBO’s critically acclaimed Watchmen, just to name a few. In fact, The Simpsons actually came away with an Institutional Award, an honor that goes to programs that have made a significant impact on media programming and the cultural landscape. The list of winners includes 30 different shows, documentaries, podcasts, radion shows, and children’s programs, and you can find the full list of winners below.

“This year’s winners are a vibrant collective of inspiring, innovative, and powerful stories. True to the spirit and legacy of Peabody, our winners are also distinguished by the presence and resilience of many emerging and diverse voices,” said Jeffrey P. Jones, executive director of Peabody. “We are especially proud to celebrate ‘FRONTLINE’ as an unwavering source for truth through quality journalism when both are actively under attack, and ‘The Simpsons,’ one of the most consistently funny and culturally important satirical sitcoms over the last three decades.”

Special Awards:

Career Achievement Award: Cicely Tyson

The Peabody Awards Board of Jurors have selected Cicely Tyson as the recipient of the Peabody Career Achievement Award. The honor is reserved for individuals whose work and commitment to electronic media has left an indelible mark on the field.

Institutional Award: Frontline

PBS’s flagship investigative documentary series “FRONTLINE” was launched in 1983 by executive producer David Fanning, quickly establishing itself as the preeminent home for hard-hitting, thoughtful, and consequential journalism on television. Since then, “FRONTLINE” has won 20 Peabody Awards—including programs as varied as “Crisis in Central America” (1985), a series examining the history of U.S. involvement in Central America; “Waco: The Inside Story” (1995), a gripping account of the tragic siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Texas; and “The Facebook Dilemma” (2018), exploring how the world’s largest social media platform’s push for profits allowed for violations of user privacy, electoral interference in U.S. elections, and the spread of disinformation and hate speech worldwide.

But “FRONTLINE” has not rested on its laurels. Under the leadership of Raney Aronson-Rath, the organization has not only thrived by continuing its robust output of films (with even greater diversity of filmmakers), but also expanded its reporting and distribution channels by venturing boldly into the digital era. It has embraced new forms of investigative journalism, developing virtual reality and web-based stories (winning two Peabody-Facebook Futures of Media Awards for digital storytelling), and launching “THE FRONTLINE DISPATCH,” an investigative podcast series.

At a time when trust in the media is challenged, when journalists are casually cast as the “enemy of the people,” and when fact-based reporting is often overshadowed by opinion and ideology masquerading as truth, Peabody honors the consistent, stalwart, and excellent journalism “FRONTLINE” offers the American public and the world.

Institutional Award: The Simpsons

On December 17, 1989, the clouds parted in the now-iconic opening sequence of “The Simpsons,” inviting the world into the town of Springfield for the first time. Already well known to fans of “The Tracey Ullman Show”—which ran a series of animated shorts by creator Matt Groening starting in 1987—Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie would soon rocket to international fame. “The Simpsons,” with nearly 700 full episodes to date, is now the longest-running scripted prime-time series in American television history, and likely the most globally recognized program in history.

Following a decade of earnest family sitcoms, the brash yellow splash of “The Simpsons” on TV cleared the way for a more satiric-parodic, deeply ironic mode of comedy. From the outset, the program was eager to question and rib not just the medium its viewers grew up on, but the beliefs upon which they were structured. Decades later, the effect of its witty humor and willingness to question authority is evident in similarly important comedies that followed in Homer’s four-toed path.

“The Simpsons” expanded notions of what the sitcom could be. It gifted us a wonderful family caught between the poles of father Homer’s delightful ignorance and daughter Lisa’s endearing brilliance, a family that would fumble, fight, and fail, and yet who loved each other in spite of it all. It boldly and inventively ushered animation back into primetime. And it has found ways to remain funny, fresh, and insightful while trusting and respecting its audience’s intelligence. In one episode, Homer thumps his television angrily, demanding that it “be more funny.” Peabody commends “The Simpsons” writers, animators, and cast for answering Homer’s call for 30 years.

Entertainment:

Chernobyl
David Makes Man
Dickinson
Fleabag
Ramy
Stranger Things
Succession
Unbelievable
Watchmen
When They See Us

Documentaries:

Apollo 11
For Sama
Independent Lens: Hale County This Morning, This Evening
POV: Inventing Tomorrow
POV: Midnight Traveler
POV: The Distant Barking Of Dogs
POV: The Silence Of Others
Surviving R. Kelly
The Edge of Democracy
True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight For Equality

Podcast/Radio:

Dolly Parton’s America
Have You Heard George’s Podcast?
In The Dark: The Path Home
Threshold: The Refuge

News:

A Different Kind Of Force: Policing Mental Illness
American Betrayal
Long Island Divided
The Hidden Workforce: Undocumented In America
Unwarranted

Children’s & Youth:

Molly Of Denali