Personal Award: Carl Stern

NBC News Correspondent, Carl Stern, is a lawyer and a journalist covering the courts for his network in Washington and elsewhere. Carl Stern constructively put his legal training to work in 1973 by winning a landmark case under the Freedom of Information Act, requiring the FBI to disclose a covert operation of a program to disrupt New Left Political organizations. During the turbulence of 1974, he combined his talents as a lawyer and a journalist with masterful reporting and interpretation of confused events. In addition to a Master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he has a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree, magna cum laude, from Cleveland State University. Carl Stern is a shining exemplar of the maturity of broadcast organizations to make creative use of specialists. At a time when many broadcasting reporters were lamenting that every reporter in Washington had become a lawyer, Carl Stern was there to supply this great need to a vast audience of American listeners who were hungry not only for facts, but authoritative clarification of a whole series of complex developments. For this distinguished achievement, the Peabody Board is proud to present Carl Stern with this award.