PBS NewsHour’s Coverage of January 6th Named Recipient of Peabody Award

Arlington, VA (June 7, 2022)— PBS NewsHour today received a Peabody Award for its coverage of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. The George Foster Peabody Awards are administered by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. Of this year’s 60 nominees, which also included PBS NewsHour special correspondent Jane Ferguson’s Inside Yemen, 30 Peabody Award recipients will be announced throughout this week.

“We are honored to have Lisa Desjardins, Judy Woodruff, and the rest of the NewsHour team be recognized with a Peabody Award for their intrepid reporting on January 6th,” said NewsHour’s senior executive producer Sara Just. “Our anchor, correspondents, producers, and the entire team were committed to bringing the American people the news as it unfolded in real-time and each went above and beyond to shed light on the events of one of the darkest days in America’s modern history; and continued to do so in the days, weeks, and months following the insurrection.”

About PBS NewsHour’s Peabody Award winning work:

PBS NewsHour’s Special Coverage of January 6th
As the world was witnessing the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, PBS NewsHour Capitol Hill correspondent Lisa Desjardins was the only journalist outside of lockdown and reporting from the halls of Congress. Desjardins relayed the news as insurrectionists stormed into the building and interviewed one of them live during NewsHour’s special on PBS (Video Link 1 and Video Link 2). Several months later, Desjardins sat down for an exclusive interview with Capitol Police Officer James Blassingame, one of two officers who filed a civil suit against Trump for the injury inflicted on that day, to share and discuss his thoughts.

Her reporting extended well beyond NewsHour’s special broadcast that day, including through a podcast, What we saw the day the Capitol was attacked, a conversation that was also produced as video with Judy Woodruff and fellow NewsHour correspondents Amna Nawaz and Yamiche Alcindor, who were outside the Capitol and the White House, respectively, as the attack unfolded.

PBS NewsHour’s anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff anchored special coverage of the electoral college count for over eleven hours on January 6th. During that time, she interviewed several members of Congress to get their reactions to the day’s events in real-time, including Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), and Rep. Mike DeSaulnier (D-CA). PBS NewsHour continued to cover the fallout of January 6th in the following months including interviews with Sen. Patty Murray about her experiences that day, Sen. Amy Klobuchar about the security failures in the Capitol and chair of the select committee investigating January 6th, Rep. Bennie Thompson, about the ongoing investigation.

Credits: Anchor and Managing Editor Judy Woodruff; Correspondents Yamiche Alcindor, Lisa Desjardins, Amna Nawaz, John Yang, William Brangham; Senior Producers Mike Melia, Elizabeth Summers, Stephanie Kotuby, Emily Carpeaux; Deputy Senior Producer Matt Loffman; Producers Sam Lane, Alexis Cox, Jaywon Choe, Frank N. Carlson, Mike Fritz, Rachel Wellford, Meredith Lee, Kate Grumke, Geoffrey Guray; Associate Producers Tess Conciatori, Saher Khan, Alex D’Elia, Patty Gorena Morales, Ryan Connelly Holmes, Vika Aronson; Design and Technical Staff: Julia Griffin, Yasmeen Sami Alamiri, Tim McPhillips, Vanessa Dennis, Travis Daub, Gretchen Frazee; Production Assistants Rebecca Newman, Harry Zahn, Ian Couzens; Editors, Dan Knapp, John Morgan, Erica R. Hendry, Emily Carpeaux, Senior Graphic Designer Michael Harry; Director Mary Lawrence; Assistant Director Janice Huey, Tatiana Terleckyi; Engineer in Chief Nancy Gerstman, Heather Harris; Technical Director Jay Nevel; Audio Operator Martin Carr, Sylvia Reis, Tom Satterfield; Video Operator Enoch Chan, John Hyater; EVS Operator Ali Jaafar, Steve Shaw; Tape Operator Brian Smith; Teleprompter Operator Avo Aghguiguian, David Tillette; Transmission Operator Tim Bowen; Vice President of Production Operations Matt Speiser; Production Manager Kamili Johnson; Executive Producer Sara Just

Press Contact: Ella Richardson, erichardson (at) newshour (dot) org