'A Thousand Cuts," documentary on Maria Ressa, wins Peabody Award

Two Jersey girls making waves: journalist Maria Ressa, left, and filmmaker Ramona Diaz.

As journalist Maria Ressa fights off attempts of the Philippine government to muzzle her online news site Rappler and to jail the Nobel Peace Prize winner, a documentary of her fight for freedom of the press won the prestigious Peabody award.

A Thousand Cuts — Frontline’s 2021 documentary on the escalating war between the government and the press in the Philippines — was honored with a George Foster Peabody Award in the documentary category.

Directed by Filipino American filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz, the award-winning feature-length documentary follows renowned journalist Maria Ressa, CEO of the independent news site Rappler and a top target of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on press freedom. In December 2021, Ressa went on to be named a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Like Ressa, Diaz immigrated with her family as a young girl and grew up in New Jersey.

As one of the most prominent Filipino American filmmakers in the US, Diaz is the director of numerous feature documentaries including: 

• Spirits Rising (1996), about Corazon Aquino and the People Power Revolution, which won a Student Academy Award and the Ida Lupino DGA Award; 
• Imelda (2004), the definitive portrait of the infamous former First Lady of the Philippines, which won the Sundance Cinematography Prize for director of photography; 
• Ferne Pearlstein (full disclosure: my wife); and 
• Motherland (2017), a cinéma vérité portrait of a hospital in one of the poorest parts of Manila, home to the busiest maternity ward on earth, which won a Special Jury Award at Sundance.

In the Peabody Award jurors’ citation, A Thousand Cuts was recognized for its “astonishing access and chilling precision” and was honored as “a journalistic profile in courage for our time and a cautionary tale for global press freedom straining against the rise of populist autocracies around the world.”

A Thousand Cuts premiered on PBS in January 2021 following a decorated theatrical release in the summer of 2020 by PBS Distribution. Most recently, the film was awarded a 2022 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in the International TV category.

“We are thrilled to see Ramona Diaz’s A Thousand Cuts be recognized by the George Foster Peabody Awards,” said Frontline Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath. 

“At a time when the critical practice and public service of journalism is increasingly under attack in countries across the globe, we are proud to share Maria’s courageous story with our PBS audiences. We share this honor with our production partners at CineDiaz, Motto Pictures and Concordia Studios, and we will continue to champion Maria and other journalists in pursuit of the truth.”

In the last days of the Presidency of President Rodrigo Duterte before he handed over the  government to incoming , the Philippine government ordered Rappler to stop its online operation. Two weeks later, the Court of Appeals upheld libel charges against Ressa which carries with it a six-year prison. sentence.

Meanwhile, Ressa remains free on bail and Rappler is continuing to operate as appeals are being made to the newly installed government of President Bongbong Marcos to drop the charges against the news site and the journalist.

“I’m very honored to receive a Peabody Award for A Thousand Cuts,” said Diaz. “It’s been a privilege to be able to tell Maria Ressa’s story. She has been sounding the clarion call for social media disinformation and its effects on democracy since 2016. This important recognition from Peabody goes a long way in helping us amplify this universally resonant story.”

Since 1940, the prestigious George Foster Peabody Awards have honored excellence in broadcasting. The awards now recognize excellence in digital storytelling as well.

Including the award for A Thousand Cuts, Frontline — which is produced at GBH in Boston and airs nationwide on PBS — has garnered 27 Peabody Awards to date. 

Stream A Thousand Cuts below.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Documentary 'Asian Americans' wins Peabody Award

The 5-episode documentary Asian Americans  is a winner of the 2021 Peabody Awards, one of most prestigious honors in broadcast journalism.

“History and solidarity were always central concepts of the Asian Americans. We wanted to tell our own story within the context of race and justice in the U.S. Not the story of the Model Minority or the Perpetual Foreigner,” says series producer Renee Tajima-Peña. 

The critically acclaimed PBS documentary series Asian Americans was premiered a year ago on PBS. It is a production of WETA Washington, DC and the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) for PBS

“Being selected for a Peabody Award is a tremendous honor for CAAM and an acknowledgement of our four decades of work to bring Asian American stories to the broadest possible audience,” says CAAM Director of Programs Donald Young, who is also one of the executive producers of Asian Americans. 

“Respected for its integrity and revered for its standards of excellence, the Peabody Awards elevate stories that defend the public interest, encourage empathy with others, and teach us to expand our understanding of the world around us--all goals that we here at CAAM value,” he said.

The expansive five-part series chronicles over 250 years of Asian American experiences, which are deeply intertwined with United States history at large. 

“One thing that’s really important about the team that came together to make Asian Americans is that everyone has a long track record of being invested in the Asian American story. And we could locate our own family stories in the series. We figured out that Don’s family has been here the longest, back to the early Chinese migration in the 1800s,” says Tajima-Peña. “My grandparents came in the early 1900s—sugar cane workers, picture brides, all of whom had no pathway to citizenship for 50 years in America. Jean Tsien, Grace Lee and Geeta Gandbhir could trace their families’ arrivals to the 1965 immigration reforms. S. Leo Chiang was a parachute kid. Duc Nguyen, one of our archivists, arrived as a refugee from Vietnam.”

Asian Americans is one of the 30 works cited this year. The Peabody 30 are the best of over 1,300 entries submitted from television, podcasts/radio and the web in entertainment, news, documentary, arts, children’s/youth, public service and multimedia programming.

For the complete list of Peabody awardees, click here.

Asian Americans, narrated by Daniel Dae Kim and Tamlyn Tomita, chronicles the role of Asian Americans who did the most dangerous work of tunneling through the Sierras to build the Transcontinental Railroad, petitioned the Supreme Court to grant birthright citizenship, and challenged racial school segregation. And this history continued through the 20th century and into the 21st century. 

“Asian Americans continued to fight for justice in the courts, at the ballot box, in the streets, the fields, on campuses and in the culture. We’re fighting today. That’s the story we wanted to tell.”

Float, Dickinson nominated for Peabody awards

A Filipino American father and son are the main characters in 'Float.'

This year's Peabody Award nominees have been announced and the Disney+ Original Pixar Sparkshort Float and Apple TV+'s Dickinson have been nominated in the Entertainment category.

The Peabody Awards board of jurors on Wednesday (April 6) revealed its 60 nominees for the most compelling and empowering stories released in 2019 across TV, radio and digital media.

Created by Pixar animator Bobby Rubio, Float features the first Filipino American animated characters, which the artist based on his relationship with his son who is autistic.

 

Peabody describes Float as a "figuratively and literally uplifting animated short about parenting a child who is different from their peers."

Dickinson stars Filipino American actor Hailee Steinfeld. Peabody dsscribes the period series: "While set in the appropriate time, this historical dramedy about famous poet Emily Dickinson is infused and energized by a fresh, contemporary sense and sensibility." 

It is the first Peabody nomination for Disney+ and Apple TV+.

Float and Dickinson are nominated against huge hits such as Chernobyl, Fleabag, Stranger Things, Watchman and many more. 

Hailee Steinfeld portrays the poet Emily Dickinson in 'Dickson.'

The Peabody Awards represent the most compelling and empowering stories released in broadcasting and digital media during 2019. 

The nominees were chosen by unanimous vote of 19 jurors from nearly 1,300 entries from television, radio/podcasts and the web in entertainment, news, documentary, children’s and public service programming. The Peabody Awards are based at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

“Peabody is proud to champion this year’s nominees who inspire our connection, provoke our thinking and delight our senses. From the communal strength of black women to the eminence of science to the conviction of those who speak up, these stories and their creators celebrate the diversity of human experience and of our democracy,” said Jeffrey P. Jones, executive director of Peabody. “

"Amidst the challenges of our present moment, we can find empathy, entertainment and truth in these nominees.”