Al Jazeera English wins prestigious Peabody Award for “thorough, enterprising and brave” reporting
- Global channel picks up the Peabody award only a few weeks after being named News Channel of the Year.
New York, USA | 04 April, 2012 – Al Jazeera English was today named as one of the recipients of the 71st Annual Peabody Awards for the channel’s ground-breaking coverage of the Arab Awakening.
Commenting on Al Jazeera English’s triumph, the Peabody judges said: “From December 2010, when protests erupted in Tunisia, through 2001, Al Jazeera was a network of record for millions of viewers throughout the world. On-the-ground reporting was thorough, enterprising and brave.”
The Peabody Awards recognizes the most outstanding achievements in the media industry, and is determined by one criterion – excellence. Each entry is evaluated on the achievement of standards it establishes within its own contexts, with the overall award being presented only to “the best of the best”.
“We are delighted to receive yet another prestigious and coveted award,” said Al Anstey, Managing Director of Al Jazeera English. “This has been a dramatic and historic year across the Arab world, and Al Jazeera English was there to capture every moment and tell the full story of events on the ground. We are very pleased to be recognized for the great work of our teams who covered the stories, and look forward to continuing to provide global, in-depth coverage to our growing audiences in the United States and across the world.”
The Peabody Award follows a number of recent high-profile awards wins for Al Jazeera English. In February, the channel was named News Channel of the Year at the Royal Television Society Awards, fending off competition from Sky News and BBC News.
Al Jazeera English’s multi-award winning documentary “Shouting in the Dark” recently won the 2012 George Polk Award for Best Television Documentary, and the channel’s flagship U.S. current affairs show Fault Lines also received the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for “Haiti: Six Months On”. Al Jazeera English also received the Columbia Journalism Award in recognition of the channel’s overall depth and quality of its coverage of the ongoing developments in the Middle East.