Friday, March 31, 2000
Channel 9 wins third Peabody
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Channel 9's investigative reporting on Paul Brown Stadium construction problems has earned WCPO-TV a prestigious Peabody Award.
Judges for the 59th annual Peabody Awards called the Channel 9 reports “courageous local investigations of fraud and misrepresentation in the construction of a new pro sports stadium.”
Only two commercial TV stations were among the 36 awards announced Thursday. Other winners included ABC's 20/20; CBS reporter Bob Simon; PBS' Frontline and Facing the Truth with Bill Moyers; National Public Radio's Morning Edition; Ken Burns; The West Wing;and The Sopranos.
Channel 9 had submitted a 45-minute tape of reports by Laure Quinlivan about “inaccurate and incomplete stadium records” and the “lack of accountability” on the Hamilton County project, says Mark Shafer, assistant news director and I-Team head.
Also listed on the entry were photographers Jeff Keene and Kenneth Fulk; news director Scott Diener; former news director Stuart Zanger; and Mr. Shafer.
“We're all thrilled. It's a tremendous honor,” Mr. Diener says.“Laure deserves the credit. She has been tenacious. She's done the bulk of the work.”
This is the second national prize for Channel 9's stadium investigations. The station won a national public service award from Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists, in October for 1998 stadium coverage.
The Peabody, to be presented May 22 in New York, is the third for the station. Elaine Greene earned one for her gun-point interview with James Hoskins, after he had taken over the station in 1980. Pat Minarcin's investigation of Donald Harvey's Drake Hospital murders resulted in a 1987 Peabody.
Other Peabody winners included ESPN SportsCentury; ABC's Annie; HBO's A Lesson Before Dying and Good Night Moon & Other Sleepytime Tales; National Public Radio's Lost & Found Sound; MTV's BIOrhythm; VH1's Save the Music campaign; Atlanta's WAGA-TV; C-SPAN's American Presidents series and PBS' I'll Make Me a World: A Century of African-American Arts; The Life of Birds with David Attenborough; and the Masterpiece Theatre productions of Lost for Words and A Rather English Marriage.
CHIP'S CHANCE: Cincinnati native Chip Chinery says his role as Chip the White House tour guide in Mail to the Chief Sunday was written specifically for him by friend Eric Champnella.
“I appear four times, killing time under the guise of giving a very important tour of the White House,” says Mr. Chinery, 35, about the film for ABC's Wonderful World of Disney (7-9 p.m. Sunday, Channels 9, 2).
Randy Quaid (Independence Day, Davis Rules) stars as the president, who is urged to use the Internet by his chief of staff (Holland Taylor from The Practice). He starts getting savvy political advice from an online correspondent who turns out to be an eighth-grader (Bill Switzer).
OFF THE BENCH: Judge Greg Mathis, star of the syndicated Judge Mathis show (11 a.m. weekdays, Channel 64), speaks to the Shilo Seventh Day Adventist Church youth group in North Avondale at 5 p.m. Saturday.
From Cincinnati, the judge heads to Los Angeles, where he makes his debut on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Tuesday (11:35 p.m., Channels 5, 22).
FAMILY SHOW: The second an nual Family Friendly Program Awards, the brainchild of Procter and Gamble executive Robert L. Wehling, will be televised for the first time this year.
Dick Clark Productions, which helped produce the inaugural awards last September, will produce the awards for CBS in late summer.
The national network telecast “is an important next step in our efforts to raise awareness for more family-friendly entertainment,” said Mr. Wehling, P&G's global marketing officer, in a statement.
The awards are given by the Family Friendly Programming Forum, a group of 40 major national advertisers. The forum seeks to encourage TV networks, studios and production companies to create more prime-time shows “that the average parent would enjoy viewing together with a child,” said Susan Pralgever of the Association of National Advertisers.
GOOD SHOWS: Half of the eight family pilot scripts developed at the WB network — and paid for by the Family Friendly Programming Forum — will be produced as pilots for the network.
Three projects from the forum's script development fund will be cast and shot as candidates for the fall TV season. A fourth will be produced for 2001, the forum announced Thursday.
Scripts funded by the forum are in addition to the usual number of pilots produced by WB. Once scripts are completed, only WB executives control the development of the shows and decide which will be produced as a pilot.
The unprecedented script development program was initiated last year by the forum to encourage more family-friendly shows.
NO WHEEL: Channel 9 pre-empts Wheel of Fortune today for In the Dugout at Opening Day (7 p.m.), a half-hour Cincinnati Reds special.
LINDBERGH SPECIAL: Biography profiles “Charles & Anne Lindbergh: Alone Together” in a two-hour special Sunday (8 p.m. and 10 p.m., A&E).
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