Somehow we were not surprised that CNN's Arab Spring coverage and Storycorps's 9/11 stories picked up Peabody awards, but it was pretty delightful to see Game of Thrones, Homeland, and of course the Colbert Report on the list as well. 

Naturally the sober, thoughtful, deep-dive reporting and storytelling were honored since that's what the the George Foster Peabody Awards, handed out by Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Communication honoring "excellence, distinguished achievement, and meritorious public service," are meant to do. It's more fun to focus on the fiction winners such as Showtime's Homeland, which the 15-member Peabody board* described as "a game of cat and mouse, a psychological thriller and a Rorschach test of post-9/11 doubts, fears and suspicions rolled into one." The HBO fantasy Game of Thrones was a bit of a surprise as well, picking up an award for its "multilayered, distinctly imagined world of mysticism and earthiness, fidelity and deceit, wonder and mayhem." 

Stephen Colbert also predictably added another award to his collection for launching his own satirical Super PAC, which we've already lauded as basically a somewhat outrageous civics lesson. Then there was the sleeper choice: Jeopardy!, a show nobody talks about but which picked up a nod for "Encouraging, celebrating and rewarding knowledge." It's nice to know our Grandma Betty's on the same page as the Peabody awards committee.

The full list of winners can be found here.

*Updated to link to the Peabody board and to exclude mention of the National Association of Broadcasters, which has no influence over the awards.

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Adam Martin