Peabody Awards Calls for Entries

ATHENS, GA.: The call for entries has been issued for the 69th annual George Foster Peabody Awards. Original broadcast, cable programs and Webcasts shown in 2009 are eligible. The entry deadline is Jan. 15, 2010. Entrants may apply online at www.peabody.uga.edu.

Concomitant to the call for entries, four new members were approved for the Peabody board by University of Georgia President Michael F. Adams: Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Alyce Myatt, Allen Sabinson and Fred Young. There are 16 board members total.

In late March, Hunter-Gault, Myatt, Sabinson and Young will join Peabody Awards Director Horace Newcomb, 2009-10 board chair Susan Douglas and 10 others in Athens to choose the next Peabody recipients from a field of more than 1,000 entries comprising broadcast and cable television, radio and the World Wide Web. The 2009 recipients are scheduled to be announced March 31, 2010.

Hunter-Gault, the first African-American to enter the University of Georgia and a graduate of what was then the Henry W. Grady School of Journalism, is an award-winning reporter now based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Alyce Myatt is executive director of Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media, in Baltimore, which provides information to the philanthropic community to advance the field of media arts and public-interest media funding. She is a former vice president of programming for PBS.

Allen Sabinson is the dean of Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media Arts and Design in Philadelphia. He was previously president of production at Miramax Films and held senior positions at ABC, A&E, TNT, NBC and Showtime.

Fred Young recently retired as senior vice president for news at Hearst-Argyle Television.