FRONTLINE Earns Three Peabody Award Nominations

Three FRONTLINE documentaries exploring America’s heroin and opioid epidemic, the fight against ISIS and the global refugee crisis were named 2017 George Foster Peabody Award finalists on Wednesday.

• Chasing Heroin — an April 2016 film from writer, producer and director Marcela Gaviria, producer Will Cohen and correspondent Martin Smith — placed America’s heroin crisis in a fresh and provocative light, telling the stories of individual addicts, but also illuminating the epidemic’s years-in-the-making social context, deeply examining shifts in U.S. drug policy and exploring what happens when addiction is treated like a public health issue, not a crime.
• Confronting ISIS, an October 2016 film from writer, reporter and producer Martin Smith and producer Linda Hirsch, investigated two years of American-led efforts to defeat ISIS. With on-the-ground reporting from five countries with key roles in the anti-ISIS fight — Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Turkey — the documentary deeply examined a number of initiatives involving different regional players, and how America’s priorities and those of its allies don’t always align.
• Exodus, a December 2016 film from director James Bluemel, told the first-person stories of refugees and migrants fleeing war, persecution and hardship for Europe — drawing on footage filmed by the refugees and migrants themselves in sinking dinghies, in the trucks of human traffickers and inside the countries they hope to call home.

“We’re so proud that these three in-depth documentaries on critical issues both at home and abroad have been honored as Peabody Award finalists,” says FRONTLINE executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath. “Working with such tenacious and talented journalists and filmmakers to tell stories like these is a privilege. None of it would be possible without our viewers and the sustaining support from PBS and CPB.”

Including FRONTLINE’s three nods, 11 of this year’s 60 Peabody nominations went to PBS programs.

Since 1940, the prestigious George Foster Peabody Awards have honored excellence in broadcasting. The awards now recognize excellence in digital storytelling as well. This year’s Peabody winners will be announced online starting April 12, with the documentary category being announced April 18. The 76th annual Peabody Awards ceremony will take place May 20 in New York City, and will air on both PBS and Fusion on June 2. Read the full list of Peabody Award nominees here.

To date, FRONTLINE has won 18 Peabody Awards. Watch this year’s Peabody-nominated FRONTLINE documentaries below.

Chasing Heroin

Confronting ISIS

Exodus