Peter Laufer has won many of the most prestigious awards available for broadcast journalists, beginning with a shared Armstrong-du Pont in the early 1970s, when he was a member of the KSAN news team reporting on the infamous shootout at San Quentin Prison that occurred during the attempt at breaking free George Jackson. His documentary for NBC News in the mid-1980s on Americans imprisoned overseas secured a George Polk Award for him. In 1989 he was a co-anchor and reporter for the KCBS San Francisco earthquake coverage that won the Peabody Award. In the early 2000s, his film “Exodus to Berlin” won the David Wolper Best Documentary Prize from the Wine Country Film Festival.

Honors and Awards

•The California Council for the Humanities awarded The Calexico Project a radio production grant as part of its California Voices program 2008.
•Mission Rejected was awarded a Koerber Foundation (Hamburg) Transatlantic Idea prize in the foundations "Transitions in Life" competition 2006.
•Wetback Nation was acknowledged with Gustavas Myers Book Awards honorable mention from the Gustavas Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights at Simmons College, Boston 2005
•RIAS Berlin Commission/ Radio Television News Directors Foundation
German/American Production Grant for TV documentary: "Exodus to Berlin," 2000, which won the David Wolper Best Documentary Prize from the Wine Country Film Festival in California, 2001
•National Parenting Publications Awards
Gold Award for the book "Made in Mexico" (National Geographic, 2000), also cited on the Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2001 list,
compiled by a joint committee of the Children's Book Council and the National Council for the Social Studies
•RIAS Berlin Commission/ Radio Television News Directors Foundation
German/American Production Grant for radio documentary: "Border Wars" 1994
•The Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy
Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government Goldsmith Research Grant: talk radio book 1993
•The Society of American Travel Writers Foundation
Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition First Runner-up travel book category 1992
•The Society for Professional Journalists Northern California Chapter
Excellence in Journalism Award 1991
•Co-anchor and reporter for KCBS, San Francisco earthquake coverage that won the Peabody Award,the Radio-Television News Directors Association, Edward R. Murrow Award and the Alfred I.duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award 1990
•Edward R. Murrow Award from the B'nai B'rth for national radio talk show (NBC network) on AIDS 1987
•National Headliner Award for documentary on the war in Nicaragua
•Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award, public service in radio journalism and National Headliner Award for the documentary "Cocaine Hunger" 1986
•B'nai B'rth Edward R. Murrow Award for the documentary on immigration reform, "Promise of Liberty," also cited by the Ohio State Awards 1986
•George Polk Award from Long Island University for reporting a documentary on Americans imprisoned overseas "Nightmare Abroad," which was also cited by the New York State and American Bar Associations 1985
•American Academy of family Physicians Award for documentary, "AIDS: The Killer Epidemic Continues"
•International Reading Association Award for documentary on illiteracy "A Loss for Words," which was also cited by the Robert F. Kennedy Awards
•The Society for Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi, Northern California Chapter Outstanding Young Journalist Award
•American Academy of Family Physicians Award for documentary, "AIDS: The Facts and the Fears" 1984
•World Hunger Media Award for the documentary
"Hunger in America," which was also cited by the American Women in Radio and Television, the Armstrong memorial Research Foundation and received the Distinguished Urban Journalism Award from the National Urban Coalition 1984
•"Healing the Wounds," a documentary on post- war problems suffered by Vietnam veterans won an Edward R. Murrow Award from the B'nai B'rth and a Gabriel Award from the Catholic Association for Broadcasters 1984