Oscars of the Air

U.S. radio's annual (since 1941) breathless moment arrived last week. The Peabody awards, which are to radio people what Pulitzer Prizes are to journalists and what Oscars are to cinemakers, were announced by the University of Georgia's School of Journalism and the National Association of Broadcasters. The winners:

News Reporter: CBS's Charles Collingwood, for "an understanding of the troublesome situation in North Africa."

Drama: CBS's The Man Behind the Gun (TIME, March 8) and its team of Writer Ranald R. MacDougall and Producer-Director William N. Robson, for intensifying "our appreciation of what the men in action are up against."

Music: NBC's The Standard Symphony (Pacific Coast Network), for "bringing the world's great music to adult listeners . . . interpretation to 4,700 schools."

Education: Station WHA, Madison, Wis., for "its splendid series (Afield with Ranger Mac) on natural science and conservation."

Local Public Service: Station KOAC, Corvallis, Ore., for "a unique and valuable program (Our Hidden Enemy--Venereal Diseases)." Dr. Charles Baker prepared the program for the University of Kentucky. KOAC was first to air it.

Regional Public Service: Station WCHS, Charleston, W.Va., for The Home Front, a program which helped morale "by providing authoritative answers to listener questions dealing with the most perplexing of public problems in a community at war."

Charles Collingwood was so flattered by his award last week that he was unable to utter an appropriate "thanks." Probably the world's youngest (26) warcaster today, he had the distinction of having won radio's top prize at the beginning of his career. CBS's Ed Murrow hired the Peabody-winner in London two years ago.

Tall, handsome Collingwood is a socially polished product of Three Rivers, Mich. He high-schooled in Washington, D.C., where his father was a forestry expert, at

Cornell won a Rhodes Scholarship. Be tween terms at Oxford he worked for the United Press in Amsterdam.

In North Africa for CBS, Collingwood found that he could not cover the front and broadcast too. So he stayed in Algiers.

It was a happy choice. A motley procession of North African characters made his hotel bedroom a headquarters for tales of political intrigue.

Three Beats. Collingwood's bedroom sessions convinced him that something was rotten in North Africa. He managed to convey the idea by air to the U.S. when he finally got through. "I honestly didn't try to evade censorship," says Colling wood, "but sometimes I'd get so upset at the news that I guess my voice was affected." Collingwood got three big beats (thanks to his diligence and radio's speed) : the first news the U.S. had of Darlan's assassination, the execution of his assailant, the roundup of the twelve Frenchmen who assisted the U.S. landings.

One of the many people in North Africa who met Collingwood was Cinemactress Kay Francis, now back in the U.S. from an Army entertainment tour. Said she: "He is the only man in Africa who knows where to get a suit pressed."

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