The Red and Black

Issue date: 3/26/08 Section: News

WILLIAMS

NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams will host this year's Peabody Awards, which are administered by the University's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The George Foster Peabody Awards are given to "recognize the most outstanding achievements in electronic media, including radio, television and cable," according to the Peabody's Web site.

Williams has won numerous awards during his career in broadcast. He also succeeded Tom Brokaw in 2004 as the seventh anchor of "NBC Nightly News," according to a news release issued by the University.

Williams won a Peabody Award for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina for NBC in 2006.

"We do not use people as hosts who have not won a Peabody Award," said Noel Holston, the public relations coordinator for the awards.

Holston said Horace Newcomb, the director of the awards, spoke to Williams about the possibility of hosting when he won in 2006, and Williams "made it very clear that he was agreeable to it."

Hosts of the Peabody Awards are typically "big-name news people," Holston said.

Past hosts include Jon Stewart, Katie Couric and Walter Cronkite, according to the Web site.

The awards ceremony is not until June 16, but board members begin deliberations this morning at 9.

The Peabody board consists of media professionals who fly to Athens from all over the world to decide the winners.

Members come from a variety of backgrounds, such as Yeun Ying Chan, the director of the media studies center at Hong Kong University, and Tim Brooks, a television historian who wrote "The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present."

The official announcement of the winners will take place April 2 at 10:30 a.m.

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