Mayhem Reports Earn Peabody Awards

Local television coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing and CBS News reports on the Yitzhak Rabin assassination were among 33 winners of the 1995 George Foster Peabody Awards announced Thursday.

The awards, administered by the University of Georgia’s Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications, honor broadcast and cable excellence. They will be presented May 6 at a ceremony in New York.

Three local stations in Oklahoma City--KFOR, KOCO and KWTV--won the first group Peabody Award in three decades for their coverage of the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995.

CBS News received an award for its radio and television coverage of the Nov. 4 assassination of the Israeli prime minister, which began within minutes of the event.

Barbara Walters picked up a Peabody for her hourlong special with Christopher Reeve, his first TV appearance since the riding accident that left him paralyzed.

Personal awards were presented to talk-show host Oprah Winfrey and to Oscar Brand, who celebrated his 50th anniversary as host of “The Folksong Festival” on WNYC New York Public Radio last December.

“Homicide: Life on the Street” was the only prime-time entertainment series to win an award this year.

“Hoop Dreams,” the documentary about two high school basketball players, won a Peabody for PBS.

Other winners included:

* “August Wilson’s ‘The Piano Lesson,’ ” CBS, the story of a family’s legacy.

* “Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story,” NBC, a drama of a woman’s honesty and its consequences.

* “Truth on Trial,” ABC’s “20/20,” about false charges of child abuse.

* “The Dying Rooms,” Cinemax, an investigation of abuse of unwanted children.

* “Road Scholar,” PBS, a tour of America with writer, humorist and commentator Andrei Codrescu.

* “Rock & Roll,” PBS, a history of the musical genre.

* “Peter Jennings Reporting: Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped,” ABC News.

* “Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation,” Discovery Channel.

* “CBS Reports: In the Killing Fields of America,” CBS News, tracing the roots of American violence.

* “Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter,” PBS, a daughter’s experience with her mother’s deterioration caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

* “Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream,” TBS.

* “The Private Life of Plants,” TBS and BBC.

* “Coming Out Under Fire,” PBS, a report on gays in the military.

* “Wynton Marsalis: Making the Music/Marsalis on Music,” National Public Radio and PBS.

* “Frontline: Waco--The Inside Story,” PBS.

* “The Politician’s Wife,” for Channel 4, London, and PBS, a film about a woman’s public humiliation and ultimate retribution.

* “The Tuskegee Airmen,” HBO.

* “The Boys of St. Vincent,” Les Productions Tele-Action Inc. in association with the National Film Board of Canada, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and Telefilm Canada, presented on A&E.;

* “Wallace & Gromit,” BBC, animation with appeal to both children and adults.

* “Blind Justice: Who Killed Janie Fray?,” WJR Radio, Detroit, an investigative report that got an innocent man out of prison.

* “St. Paul Sunday,” Minnesota Public Radio, a music and entertainment series.

* “New York City School Corruption,” WCBS-TV, New York.

* “Kevin’s Sentence,” Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Toronto, a report on the impact of drunk driving on teenagers, their families and the justice system.