Last year, Stephen Colbert started up a Super PAC of his very own, and immediately launched a series of satirical skits and interviews that brought to light some of the loopholes and flaws in political spending that politicians can take advantage of. And now, Colbert will be receiving a Peabody for it.
Colbert’s Super PAC satire was started largely in response of the 2010 Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, which overruled prior rulings that allowed for governments to restrict corporations from spending their funds on ads supporting a candidate–or urging their defeat.
“Launching his own SuperPAC as a satirical protest against megabucks politics, Colbert mixed cerebral comedy with inspired sight gags, interviews and preposterously funny monologues,” University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, which administers the Peabody awards, said in a statement.
This is Colbert’s second Peabody–he received his first in 2008–and, naturally, he’s pleased to have a second Peabody award to put on his shelf. “What an honor! I am truly speechless. Luckily, thanks to Citizens United, my money can speak for me,” Colbert wrote in a tweet.
The awards ceremony, which will also see awards handed out to CNN, NPR, Al Jazeera English, PBS, HBO and many more, will take place in New York on May 21, and will be hosted by Patrick Stewart.
