Canadian teen series Degrassi and documentary Reel Injun are among the latest winners of Peabody Awards, the annual U.S. honours for the best in electronic media.

The Peabodys, announced in Athens, Georgia on Thursday by the University of Georgia, recognized 39 radio and television productions from 2010.

A Degrassi episode about a transgendered teen, titled "My Body is a Cage," won the award after airing on specialty network TeenNick in the U.S.

The Degrassi franchise, now 30 years old, follows students at a Toronto high school as they deal with life's problems. It has won 20 Geminis and two International Emmys.

Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian is Canadian Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond's examination of how movies have portrayed and misrepresented First Nations people over many decades.

Producers for Diamond's documentary included Rezolution Pictures, the National Film Board and Radio-Canada . The show was broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens in the U.S.

Other prominent documentaries to win 2011 Peabody Awards include:

  • Burma VJ: Danish filmmaker Anders Ostergaard's story of young video journalists sending out images of Burma's 2007 protests.
  • If God is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise: Spike Lee's examination of New Orleans five years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
  • The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers: Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith's story of the insider who exposed the series of lies behind the Vietnam War.

Wins for The Pacific, Justified

Jordan Todosey is shown in a scene from Degrassi, which won a Peabody Award on Thursday. Jordan Todosey is shown in a scene from Degrassi, which won a Peabody Award on Thursday. Epitome Pictures/Canadian Press

National Public Radio got three awards, including for its coverage of Pakistan and for a special on campus rapes.

Prominent Steven Spielberg- and HBO-produced miniseries The Pacific, which retells the stories of three real servicemen fighting the Japanese during the Second World War, won an award, as did Western drama Justified.

CNN won a Peabody for its coverage of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, including the science, the politics, the human and animal toll of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication has administered the Peabodys since 1940.

The 70th annual Peabody Awards ceremony will take place May 23 at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

With files from The Associated Press