Two projects produced by The Under-Told Stories Project, a collaboration between PBS and the University of St. Thomas, have been nominated for the News Emmy and Peabody awards. The Under-Told Stories Project is run by St. Thomas employees Fred de Sam Lazaro and Simeon Lancaster '17.
"We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to tell these stories, and to our supporters for helping us carry on the work," said de Sam Lazaro, the executive director of the Under-Told Stories Project and on-air correspondent.
The Peabody nomination recognizes PBS News Hour’s broad repertoire of reporting on the tectonic shift in immigration policy under the Trump administration and includes the Under-Told Stories Project report on the response from Minnesota’s Somali community regarding Operation Metro Surge and news of a fraud scandal gripping the state.
The winners of the Peabody Awards will be announced on Thursday, April 23, 2026. Lancaster, a St. Thomas alum, was producer on the project.
Lancaster also produced the package de Sam Lazaro reported that received the News Emmy nomination. As part of the PBS News Hour’s “Cuts & Consequences” series examining the far-reaching effects of the federal government's shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Under-Told Stories reporting focused on the impact of USAID cuts on Bangladesh’s fight against tuberculosis received the n,
As a special correspondent on the ground in Bangladesh, Fred de Sam Lazaro's reporting showed how the aid freeze stalled tuberculosis control efforts in a nation with one of the world's highest TB burdens. Health workers warned that decades of progress could unravel, raising the specter of a global resurgence of a highly contagious disease.
Lancaster, a ThreeSixty Journalism alumnus who worked at TommieMedia (currently the Crest), as a St. Thomas student, said he wanted to be a part of bringing about change through media and ”restoring empathy for distant people in distant places in an increasingly apathetic world.”
"Through on-the-ground reporting, firsthand testimonies and whistleblower accounts, this reporting exposed the humanitarian consequences of the foreign aid freeze on some of the world's most vulnerable people," according to a news announcement about the nomination.
The News & Documentary Emmys Awards, administered by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and the news award winners, will be announced on Wednesday, May 27, 2026.
Under-Told Stories is a journalism project focused on consequences of poverty and the work of change agents addressing them.
