A Peabody Award For Diane Lawrence—

Journalism Honors Go To Newtown Native

By Shannon Hicks

A public radio documentary co-produced by the freelance journalist and Newtown native Diane Cameron Lawrence has won a Peabody Award, the most prestigious award in broadcast journalism. Ms Lawrence and her husband, John Gregory, will share the honor. They learned of the award on March 30.

“I came home Wednesday afternoon and there was a message on our answering machine from the Peabody people,” Ms Lawrence said from her Louisville, Ky., home Friday morning. “That’s how we found out about this!” she laughed.

“The first person I called was my husband. The second was my mother,” said Ms Lawrence, who grew up in Newtown. Her mother, Jean, still lives here.

The couple’s radio documentary, “Sisters in Pain,” tells the story of incarcerated women who find support for their struggles among prison staff, public defenders, and a governor who granted them a rare and unusual clemency.

The documentary profiles three women who were convicted and imprisoned in Kentucky for assaulting, killing, or being involved somehow in the murder of the husbands and boyfriends who abused them. In a controversial move, then-Governor Brereton Jones granted clemency to the women in 1995. Mr Jones believed the women had acted in self-defense and were not criminals.

When the events were taking place nearly a decade ago the media began referring to the ten women being considered for clemency as The Sisters in Pain.

Through interviews with three of the “sisters in pain,” and with others involved in the story and in the issue of domestic violence, Ms Lawrence and Mr Gregory explored the lives of battered women and what constitutes a justifiable self-defense in the face of severe abuse.

Ten women had initially been granted clemency by the former governor, and then another three were released “under similar circumstances after the first release,” Ms Lawrence explained. “They had all been battered women.”

The event was only the third “so-called mass clemency” in recent years, said Ms Lawrence. Two had previously occurred, one in Ohio and the other in Maryland.

“I was living in Kentucky when this occurred originally. I had been thinking for some time that it would make a very good radio documentary but many years had elapsed, and I did not know how to get in touch with any of these women,” Ms Lawrence explained. Seven years passed between the time the women were released and Ms Lawrence decided to move forward on her documentary.

To begin her search Ms Lawrence contacted Marsha Weinstein, who had been the executive director of The Kentucky Commission on Women during the 1990s when Mr Jones was the governor. Mrs Weinstein’s office reported directly to the governor, and Mrs Weinstein had reportedly been very instrumental in persuading the governor to offer clemency. Mrs Weinstein made the initial contact with the Sisters in Pain on behalf of Ms Lawrence.

“One of the challenges of doing the program was finding these women, first of all, and then earning their trust,” Ms Lawrence said. “I think they had every reason not to speak to this unknown woman with a tape recorder,” she admitted. “I understood that. They had been through so much.”

Ms Lawrence was able to locate four of the so-called Sisters in Pain; three agreed to speak with her for the documentary. One woman was living in Fort Knox, the second was living in Illinois, and the third was living in Louisville.

“They all explained to me that there was one reason they would speak up: to educate the public of the reality of domestic abuse,” she said.

In addition to the three former prisoners, Diane Lawrence also interviewed former Governor Jones, the former head of the Kentucky Parole Board, prosecutors, a public defender, experts on domestic violence issues, and the former warden of the women’s prison, among others. The program includes archival newscast footage as well as other archival material.

The program was completed September 2003, and then aired on all Kentucky Public Radio stations in October and November.

“We got quite a few phone calls and emails from people. The program is pretty hard-hitting,” Ms Lawrence said. “It’s not easy to listen to. These women speak very openly and honestly about the details of their lives before prison. We heard from people who were moved by it, and from people who were grateful that we had brought the reality of domestic violence to the airwaves.

“I know I heard from some people who had gone through it, or knew people who had gone through it,” she continued. “Part of what we tried to do was reach out to women who are in abusive situations to try to get them some help. I can only hope that we accomplished that.”

In a November 2003 interview with The Courier Journal, a newspaper in Louisville, Ky., prior to the documentary’s debut, Ms Lawrence admitted the story affected her. Having done more than 2,000 interviews during her career, she said, there were few issues that got to her. She cried “only three times” prior to interviewing the sisters in pain, she told the newspaper.

“But I shed tears over these three interviews,” she added.

Ms Lawrence was the co-producer and writer for “Sisters in Pain.” John Gregory was the second co-producer and the documentary’s editor.

“We are a very small operation,” explained Ms Lawrence, who named her production company Down To Earth Productions after the name of a radio show she used to host.

“For us producing a program means raising the money to fund it, then research it, do the interviews, write the script, and then mix the piece,” she said. For “Sisters in Pain,” Ms Lawrence did everything up to the editing. Mr Gregory did the script editing and mixed the story.

Marlene Sanders, a former network news correspondent, producer and executive for ABC and CBS News, is a member of the 2003-04 Peabody Board. She was impressed with Ms Lawrence’s work.

“For one thing, anybody can do interviews on battered women,” Ms Sanders said this week from New York University, where she is an adjunct professor in the department of journalism. “I thought what she did was very powerful, but she went beyond that.

“She did additional reporting, including one thing I thought was very effective: she spoke with the governor about what was done about these women. She really covered all the ground,” added Ms Sanders. “I don’t think there was a single stone left unturned, to tell you the truth.”

Ms Lawrence and Mr Gregory have been producing programs for 14 years. They met while working in public radio.

Today she is a freelance producer, and he is the assistant manager and program director for WEKU-FM, a public radio service of Eastern Kentucky University and its Division of Media Resources.

The Peabody will be awarded jointly to Ms Lawrence and Mr Gregory as well as to their separate entities – Down To Earth Productions and WEKU-FM.

Ms Lawrence received additional good news regarding “Sisters in Pain” this week. On Monday she had a telephone call from Ethel Kennedy, who informed Ms Lawrence that the documentary has also been named the winner of the 2004 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in the Domestic Radio category. While the award is referred to as “the poor people’s Pulitzer” by many members of the media, ABCnews reporter and RFK Award panel member Carole Simpson has pointed out that the award is in fact “one of the most prestigious in the journalism community. It says proudly and boldly that the least of us in society will not be forgotten.”

The awards, founded in December 1968, “honor outstanding reporting of problems of the disadvantaged.”

This is not the first time Ms Lawrence’s work has been recognized. She has received honors from Kentucky’s Associated Press twice and “about 14 awards,” she said, from The Society for Professional Journalists.

“Sisters in Pain” is still a finalist in three additional national competitions: The National Federation of Community Broadcasters; The Green Eyeshades Awards, an honor handed out by The Society for Professional Journalists; and The Sidney Hillman Prize, given for journalistic programs that expose social injustices and advocate progressive public policy.

Diane Cameron Lawrence is a 1973 graduate of Newtown High School. She was a state champion for two track events in 1971 (100-yard dash and 220-yard dash), and a record holder for a number of years in three track and field events (200 meters, long jump, and as a member of the 4x100 relay team).

She still has strong ties to Newtown (which she says she “adores”), and visits home five or six times annually. Her mother Jean expects to join Ms Lawrence and Mr Gregory for the Peabody awards ceremony in New York City next month. Ms Lawrence’s father, Lt Edward M. Lawrence (USN, Ret), died in April 1998.

Established in 1940, Peabody Awards recognize distinguished achievement and meritorious public service by stations, networks, producing organizations, and individuals. The Peabody Board is a 15-member group, comprised of television critics, broadcast and cable industry executives, and experts in culture and the arts, that judges the entries. Selection is made by the board following review by special screening committees of UGA faculty, students and staff.

The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications selected 29 honorees for excellence in electronic media chosen from more than 1,100 entries. Other winners included the CBS News program 60 Minutes; PBS series American Experience, Frontline and The NewsHour; as well as HBO and the BBC. The only other radio program honored was the music series American Mavericks produced by Minnesota Public Radio.

Honors also included an Individual Peabody to Bill Moyers, the first Peabody awarded to a website, and joint recognition of MTV and The Kaiser Family Foundation for public service.

The 2004 Peabody Awards will be presented on May 17 at a luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Katie Couric will host the ceremony.

“I finally understand what people are talking about when they say they’re walking on air,” Ms Lawrence said last week. “That’s exactly what I felt like when I heard the message from the Peabody people.

“Our phone has been ringing off the hook for the last 48 hours. It’s been wonderful.”