United Nations In Action

Television’s most ambitious and most worthwhile undertaking in the news area during 1949 in the judgment of the Peabody Board was United Nations In Action, a series of programs which reported the activities and proceedings of the U.N.. Underwritten by the Ford Motor Company as a public service, these programs were the handiwork of Lyman Bryson, CBS Counselor on Public Affairs; Larry Lesueur, CBS United Nations Correspondent; Edmund Chester, CBS Director of News; Robert Bendick, CBS Director of Special Events; Frank Schaffner, CBS Director of Studio One; with assistance from Benjamin V. Cohen, U.N. Assistant Secretary General, and his Department of Public Information. In launching the series, Mr. Cohen said: “It is more necessary now than ever before for the world to be well-informed, and nothing can give a clearer idea of what is being done at Lake Success than seeing these sessions and the setting in which they are held.” Through the medium of television and the enterprise of CBS, Ford, and the persons named, this ‘seeing’ has been achieved, and in recognition thereof the George Foster Peabody Television News Award is hereby presented to United Nations In Action.