National & International News

NPR Wins Peabody Award For Coverage Of Conflict In Syria

By Mark Memmott

Published March 27, 2013 at 10:51 AM EDT

In this image taken July 16, 2012, and provided by Edlib News Network, a Syrian girl holds a poster that reads, "Greetings from Kfarnebel's children to the Free Syrian Army soldiers in Damascus," during a demonstration in Kfarnebel, Syria. The image was part of an "inside rebel-held Syria" series of stories by NPR's Kelly McEvers.

Praising their "detailed reportage, often from dangerous locations," the judges of the 72nd Annual Peabody Awards have singled out NPR's Kelly McEvers and Deborah Amos for their coverage of the conflict in Syria.

While naming NPR as one of this year's award winners, the Peabody judges lauded Kelly and Deborah for "finding ways [in 2012] to get deep into Syria even after their official visas were revoked." You can see and hear Deborah's reports from Syria here, and Kelly's are here. And there's an NPR.org "Inside Rebel-Held Syria" special series that collects five of Kelly's reports posted here.

The Peabodys, which reward excellence in electronic media, are administered by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

The complete list of this year's honorees is posted here. They also include:

-- Radio Diaries, for a profile of U.S. teen boxer Claressa Shields on All Things Considered.

-- WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show, which the judges call New York City's "most revered radio forum for exploring the arts, cultural affairs and the public life of the city."

-- This American Life's "What Happened at Dos Erres" documentary. The judges say it "illuminates a larger event, a Guatemalan civil-war massacre. ... Its dramatic heart is the astounding story of a child survivor of the 1982 atrocity who learns the man he believed to be his father had in fact been commander of the military unit that wiped out most of his village."

-- , which we've been leaning on this week for coverage of the same-sex marriage cases being heard at the Supreme Court.

Update at 2 p.m. ET. Also From The World Of Public Media.

Awards went to:

-- "Why Poverty" an Independent Television Service and STEPS International production broadcast on PBS. It presented "parallax views of poverty today and through the ages."

-- "Summer Pasture," an Independent Lens production also broadcast on PBS. It offered "a rare account of Tibet from the inside."

NPR's Peabody awards from recent years:

-- 2012

-- 2011

-- 2010