The George Foster Peabody Awards (Peabody Awards) recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting. Committee member Lambdin Kay, manager of WSB Radio in Atlanta, thought the award would be more credible if it were academically sanctioned and independently administered. He approached John E. Drewry of the University of Georgia’s Henry W. Grady School of Journalism, who enthusiastically endorsed the idea. The Peabody Award was established in 1940 with the school, now the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, as its permanent home.

The Peabody Awards were originally only for radio, but in 1948, television awards were introduced. In the late 1990s additional categories for material distributed via the World Wide Web were added. Materials created solely for theatrical motion picture release are not eligible.

George Foster Peabody (July 27, 1852 in Columbus, Georgia - March 4, 1938 in Warm Springs, Georgia) was a banker and philanthropist.

He was born to George Henry Peabody and Elvira Peabody (née Canfield) as the first of four children. Both parents were native New Englanders of colonial ancestry. George Henry Peabody, who came from a line of merchants, bankers and professional men, had moved from Connecticut to Columbus, Georgia, where he ran a prosperous general store. After attending private school in Columbus, young Peabody spent a few months at Deer Hill Institute in Danbury, Connecticut. The Civil War, however, impoverished his family, and in 1866 they moved to Brooklyn, New York and young Peabody went to work in a wholesale dry goods firm, advancing rapidly.

In the evenings Peabody read extensively at the library of the Brooklyn Y.M.C.A, which he later called his "alma mater", and also took part in the activities of the Reformed Church in Brooklyn Heights, where he met and became good friends with young investment banker Spencer Trask. On May 2, 1881, Peabody became a partner in the new firm of Spencer Trask & Company. During the 1880s and 1890s this investment house took a leading part in financing electric lighting corporations, sugar beet and other industrial enterprises, and railroad construction in the western United States and Mexico. Peabody himself handled most of the firm's railroad investments, working in close association with William J. Palmer. He also became a director in numerous corporations. Peabody, his brother Charles Jones Peabody and Spenser Trask amassed a great portion of their wealth from the Edison Electric Company. Trask served as president of Edison Electric Illuminating, and when J.P. Morgan—protege of New England businessman/philanthropist George Peabody—financier of Edison Electric, merged all into the General Electric Company in 1892, George Foster Peabody became a member of the GE board of directors.

George Foster may refer to:

Margaret Julia “Marlo” Thomas (born November 21, 1937) is an American actress, producer, and social activist known for her starring role on the TV series That Girl (1966–1971). She also serves as National Outreach Director for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Thomas was born in Detroit, Michigan, the eldest child of comedian Danny Thomas (1912–1991) and his wife, the former Rose Marie Cassaniti (1914–2000). On her mother's side, she is also the granddaughter of drummer and percussionist, Marie "Mary" Cassaniti (1896–1972). Her brother, Tony Thomas, is a television and film producer, and her sister, Terre Thomas, is a former actress. Her father was Lebanese-American and her mother was Italian-American.

Marlo Thomas was raised in Beverly Hills, California. Her parents called her Margo as a child, though she soon became known as Marlo, she told The New York Times, because of her childhood mispronunciation of the nickname. She attended Marymount High School in Los Angeles. Thomas graduated from the University of Southern California with a teaching degree; "I wanted a piece of paper that said I was qualified to do something," she said. She was also a member of the sorority Kappa Alpha Theta.

Jessica Soho is Filipino broadcast journalist, documentarian and news director who received a George Foster Peabody Award and was the first Filipino to win the British Fleet Journalism Award in 1998.

She has reported for the GMA network for 27 years.

A Ka Doroy Valencia awardee, Soho was also one of the 100 Filipino Women of Distinction chosen during the centennial celebration of the Philippines.

Her story of a hostage crisis in Cagayan Valley made her the first Filipino to win in the New York Film Festival for Coverage of a Breaking Story.

She helped conceptualize the one-hour documentary television program I-Witness, which ran for over 10 years becoming the longest running late-night program on the air as of 2009

Her documentaries on the Kidneys for Sale business and Kamao death sport made her the first Filipino reporter, with GMA Network as the first Filipino network, to win the George Foster Peabody Award on 1999.

Soho hosts Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho and was honored on October 14, 2008, by Quezon City with the Outstanding Citizen Award.