Sept. 11 coverage by ABC, NPR win Peabody awards, as do `Nightline,' 'Bernie Mac'

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) _ ABC News and National Public Radio won Peabody Awards on Wednesday for their coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and ABC's embattled ``Nightline'' also was honored

Wednesday, March 27th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) _ ABC News and National Public Radio won Peabody Awards on Wednesday for their coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and ABC's embattled ``Nightline'' also was honored with one of the annual awards for broadcast excellence.

``The Bernie Mac Show,'' a Fox series about a man's adventures raising his sister's three children, also won for transcending ``race and class while lifting viewers with laughter, compassion _ and cool,'' judges wrote.

HBO was honored for five projects, including the 10-part World War II miniseries ``Band of Brothers,'' ``Wit,'' the film adaptation of Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a woman facing cancer, and ``The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,'' a documentary about the baseball Hall of Famer that was shown on the HBO-owned Cinemax.

The annual awards are given by the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication to honor broadcast excellence. A total of 34 winners were selected this year from more than 1,100 entries.

ABC News and NPR won for their coverage of the attacks on New York and Washington. Cable News Network won for its ``CNN Presents: `Beneath the Veil' and `Unholy War,''' which look at the terror and violence under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

NPR won a second Peabody for its ``Jazz Profiles'' program.

Judges honored ``Nightline'' as ``a truly remarkable television institution demonstrating the medium's capacity to serve a vital social function.''

ABC officials recently considered dumping the program as they tried to lure David Letterman from CBS. Letterman signed a new contract with CBS, but the future of ``Nightline'' _ which attracts a mostly older audience _ is still uncertain.

Nickelodeon won two awards, for ``Little Bill'' and ``Blue's Clues.'' Judges said ``Little Bill'' demonstrates that ``television can be quiet, gentle and caring at every moment, with any subject, for all people.''

WGBH-TV in Boston also won a Peabody as ``an example of the best in public television.''