Storytelling across electronic media was celebrated on Monday at the 73rd annual Peabody Awards ceremony, which took place at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City.
Among the recipients of the esteemed award was The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr., who accepted the award for his PBS documentary series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross.
“This is a great victory of all of us that love African-American history and those of us that want to see it become an explicably intertwined part of American culture,” Gates said of his accomplishment back in April, when the award winners were announced. “This [documentary] took five years and is a great victory for our ancestors and their sacrifices, and they should be celebrated every day in a school curriculum, and my hope is that the DVD will be used in every classroom from kindergarten to college. I want to thank my production team: Dyllan Mcgee, Rachel Dretzin, Asako Gladsjo.”
Peabody Awards aren’t based on categories; rather, they denote excellence in radio, television and the Web, focusing on celebrating stories that are done well and that matter.
Other awardees include 180 Days: A Year Inside an American High School—a documentary broadcast on PBS that chronicles life at a high school in a high-poverty section of Washington, D.C.—and broadcast, cable and Web series such as Breaking Bad, Key & Peele, House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black and Scandal.