UP Newsletter: UP Mass Comunication Alumna Kara David produces Peabody Award-winning documentary

Outstanding UP Alumna (Mass Communication) Kara David’s documentary on “Ambulance on Foot” in the remote communities of Mindoro won this year’s prestigious George Peabody Award. Kara David in a promotional photo for her show “OFW Diaries” at GMA 7. Ambulancia de Paa, an “I-Witness” documentary, which showed how the Mangyan community of Apnagan, Oriental Mindoro worked as a team to transport the seriously ill through rugged trails, was one of 36 winners of the annual award. It was cited for “memorably [chronicling] how residents of a poor, remote town can only get their sick and injured to medical care using the ‘ambulance on foot,’ woven hammocks that they carry over dangerous terrain.” Aired in March 2009, Ambulancia de Paa was hosted by Kara David and directed by Nowell Cuanang. The other members of the award-winning I-Witness team were Angel Directo, executive producer; Kristoffer Brugada, program manager; Disney Carreon, cameraman; Wilma Sesaldo, researcher. This is the second time GMA Network was recognized by the Peabody Awards. In 1999, “Kidneys for Sale” by another Outstanding UP Alumna (Mass Communication) Jessica Soho and her I-Witness documentary team, and Jay Taruc’s Child Labor story on Brigada Siyete were also given awards. According to a www.gmanews.tv report, David was happy to win the award, but she also admitted to feelings of guilt about winning, when “there has been little change” in the subject of her documentary. Among the other winners for 2009 are “Glee,” the musical “dramedy” on Fox, and reports and documentaries on 60 Minutes (CBS), BBC and the Public Broadcast System (PBS). The 69th Annual Peabody Awards ceremony will be held on May 17 New York City and will be hosted by Diane Sawyer, the award-winning anchor of ABC’s “World News.” The awards are administered by the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.