The Peabody Awards honors the best in electronic media. Winners for the 2011 awards were handed out this week at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Among the 38 recipients were some of TV’s most familiar faces.

Stephen Colbert earned his second Peabody as host of the satire, Colbert Report.

Alex Trebek and Jeopardy! earned their first Peabody. The classic game show returned to the air with Trebek in 1984. (Watch the video below)

CNN was recognized with three trophies, including its coverage of the Arab Spring. Anderson Cooper was on hand to accept the honor.

PBS was selected for three awards, one given to the acclaimed series American Experience.

On a lighter note, NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation was victorious, along with the HBO medieval fantasy Game of Thrones. After the jump, watch a clip with actors from both shows.

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Jonas Larsen, a longtime TV executive producer, as been named VP in charge of specials at Comedy Central. He will report directly to Elizabeth Porter, senior vice president for specials and talent.

Larsen most recently executive produced Pretty Wicked, a competition series for the Oxygen network in 2009. He also helmed the seventh season of Celebrity Fit Club: Bootcamp for VH1.

In his new position, Larsen will be responsible for overseeing original network productions of the Comedy Central Roast series and The Comedy Awards.

“Bringing Jonas on board is a game changer. He’s such a skilled executive producer with great instincts, he’ll be instrumental in taking our original stand-up hour and tent pole event production to new levels,” Porter says. “I’m only happy we were able to convince him to come over to the dark side.”

As we reported on Friday, CNN abruptly fired afternoon anchor Rick Sanchez.

During a 20-minute satellite radio interview on Thursday, Sanchez made derogatory comments about Jews, his former employers and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart.

One CNN insider tells FishbowlNY, “I don’t think anybody who heard that audio clip could have a positive reaction to it.” 

The insider believes anyone who listened to the interview knew that Sanchez was going to have to deal with the consequences.

Long before Friday, though, there was a report on politico.com that indicated many staffers were apparently not Sanchez supporters.

Prior to the start of John King’s new evening show in January 2010, the report states that 200 employees at the Washington bureau were asked if they respect Sanchez or Wolf Blitzer, host of The Situation Room, as a journalist. 

Nearly all in attendance raised their hands for Blitzer, while politico.com reported at the time that only a select few gave similar support for the Rick’s List host.

Stewart has his first comment to the Sanchez firing after the jump.
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At mediabistro.com’s Dessert and Discourse event for women’s magazine editors earlier this month, moderator Sara Benincasa guided the conversation about digital content creation with humor and an expert command of the issues at hand.

At one point she warned all of the women in attendance that “the cattiness” was about to come out as she asked panelists to talk about specific Web sites that were doing things wrong.

Benincasa, a stand up comedienne known for her side-splitting impressions of Sarah Palin during the election last year, has more moderating duties on tap. This week, she’ll lead a panel at Mediabistro’s UGCX conference in New York on entertainment media on the Web, featuring blip.tv’s co-founder Justin Day and director of content development Eric Mortensen.

Benincasa took time out of her busy work schedule to talk to FishbowlNY about her career, her life as a media panel moderator and where you can find her beyond the mediabistro.com stage.

FishbowlNY: How did you get into stand up comedy?

Sara Benincasa: I was doing my masters degree in education at Teachers College at Columbia, and I felt confused and scared because I didn’t have the passion for teaching that my classmates and professors displayed. I remember crying in a seminar one day and admitting, “I just don’t know if I belong here.” It’s a wonderful community, but I knew I couldn’t live up to its legacy and to the aptitude of my peers. One of my peers happened to have just quit her job at Comedy Central, and she pulled me aside after class one day and suggested I try stand-up comedy. I guess she thought I had funny comments about No Child Left Behind and lesson plan design. Which I did, because both of those things are inherently HILARIOUS. So my first gig was opening for two professional comics at an event sponsored by the United Nations and the Rockefeller Foundation during International Women’s Week 2006. I got paid $40 and thought that meant you got paid for every set you did in stand-up. Oh, how wrong I was.

I did jokes about the differences between Hindi, Urdu and Farsi, and I killed with the Middle Eastern and subcontinental Asian grad students in the crowd. And when you’ve got that crowd on your side, you can take over the world.

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“The Daily Show” correspondent Jason Jones visited The New York Times‘ offices for a segment on last night’s show, skewering the paper’s stuffy reputation and insistence on printing news a day late despite competition from the digital world.

Jones stumped assistant managing editor Rick Berke with his take on “aged news,” challenging Berke to find anything in the paper “that happened today.” Executive editor Bill Keller seemed a little more amenable to the gentle ribbing. He even laughed at Jones’ timely joke about the creaky old rag’s balance sheets. Hint: what’s black and white and red all over?

However, Keller did manage to get in some digs on The Huffington Post, Google and Drudge, pointing out that they’ll never have Baghdad bureaus “because it’s expensive, because it’s dangerous.” Meanwhile, Keller envisions the Times as one of the last ships afloat in a sea of lifeboats “with people dying to clamber on board.” But, as Jones points out, their lifeboat is made of paper, so good luck if that ship ever goes down.

• Rosie: Makes Hasselbeck cry. Again. [NYP]

• Kevin Reilly: Signs on for three more years as prez of NBC Entertainment. [LAT]
• Time Inc: Job cuts slow. [WWD]
• Today: Loses viewers to Early Show. [Variety]
• Wall Street Journal: Now advertising on YouTube. [Beet TV]
• Comedy Central: To launch in Germany. [WSJ]
• Tina Brown’s Di Book: To be excerpted by Vanity Fair. [ETP]