Walter Cronkite Award for in Journalism
Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017 Sheraton Grand Phoenix
Luncheon Menu Salad Spinach and Arugula Salad Baby spinach and arugula greens, dried cranberries, candied nuts, Manchego cheese, house-cured tomatoes, cucumbers, citrus vinaigrette
Entrée Seared Chicken and Leeks Seared chicken breast, creamed leeks, potato gratin, heirloom cauliflower, haricots verts and a Madeira wine demi
Dessert Pumpkin Cheesecake Shortbread crust, spiced anglaise, pumpkin seed brittle and chocolate garnish
Walter Cronkite Award for in Journalism Introductory Remarks Christopher Callahan Dean, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and University Vice Provost, Downtown Phoenix Campus Thanking Our Supporters Anita Helt Vice President and General Manager, ABC15/KNXV-TV President, Cronkite Endowment Board Introduction of Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff Adriana De Alba Cronkite student Presentation of the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism Dr. Mark S. Searle University Provost, Arizona State University Remarks by Honoree Judy Woodruff
The Cronkite School The Cronkite School is widely recognized as one of the nation’s premier professional journalism programs. Rooted in the timehonored values — accuracy, responsibility, objectivity, integrity — that characterize its namesake, the school fosters journalistic excellence and ethics among students as they master the professional skills they need to succeed in the digital journalism world of today and tomorrow. The Cronkite School’s nearly 2,000 students consistently lead the country in national competitions. Over the past decade, Cronkite has won prestigious national awards such as the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award. The school also has been No. 1 in the nation in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Mark of Excellence competition and in the Broadcast Education Association’s Festival of Media Arts awards and has finished in the top 10 in the Hearst Journalism Awards each year. Students are guided by a faculty that is
made up of both award-winning professional journalists and world-class media scholars. Cronkite professors include Pulitzer Prizewinning journalists, digital media thought leaders, top TV producers and correspondents, major metropolitan newspaper editors and strategic communications experts. They are master teachers, writers and scholars who often speak around the globe on the most important topics facing journalists today. The Cronkite School is a leader in journalism education with its innovative use of the “teaching hospital” model, which provides both unparalleled learning opportunities for students and important news content to the community, state, region and nation. In the school’s dozen professional immersion programs, students apply what they have learned in the classroom in real-world learning environments. They cover the most important issues of the day from public affairs news bureaus in Phoenix and Washington, D.C., and report
on sports from bureaus in Los Angeles and Phoenix. Students in the Public Relations Lab develop campaigns for client companies, while Carnegie-Knight News21 multimedia journalists conduct national data-driven investigations into issues critical to Americans. In Cronkite Noticias, bilingual students produce Spanishlanguage broadcast and digital stories, and in the New Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab, they use digital technologies to forge the future of journalism. Arizona PBS, one of the nation’s largest public television stations, is part of Cronkite, making it the largest media outlet operated by a journalism school in the world. Arizona PBS serves as a hub for the school’s full-immersion professional programs and a testing ground for innovation in journalism. Students produce a nightly newscast that reaches 1.9 million households on Arizona PBS. More than 100 students in many of these professional immersion programs collaborated to create a statewide TV special on the deadly problem of prescription drug abuse. “Hooked Rx: From Prescription to Addiction,” produced by the Cronkite School in partnership with the
Arizona Broadcasters Association, reached nearly 1 million viewers in January. Elsewhere at the school, the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism provides education and training to professional journalists and Cronkite Global Initiatives brings international journalists to the school and sends students and faculty to other countries to report and conduct trainings. All of these initiatives originate in a stateof-the-art building that is considered one of the best journalism education facilities in the nation. ASU’s investment in the school has generated national and international attention from educators and media professionals who place the school in the top tier of all U.S. journalism schools. The Times of London, The New York Times and USA Today have pointed to the Cronkite School as a leading example of changes taking place at journalism schools across the country. These prestigious publications called the Cronkite School a pioneer, kindling a notion of new media that will shape how news is delivered and how people will stay informed in the future.
Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill’s ascent to co-anchors at the “PBS NewsHour” marked a milestone in journalism. No national news organization had ever paired two female journalists as co-anchors for an evening news broadcast. The tandem built upon the NewsHour’s reputation for providing reliable reporting, analysis and live studio interviews with world leaders and newsmakers.
Judy Woodruff
Judy Woodruff is the award-winning anchor and managing editor of the “PBS NewsHour.” For more than four decades, she has covered politics and major news stories at CNN, NBC and PBS. At the “PBS NewsHour,” Woodruff leads a newscast that millions of Americans and citizens of the world turn to for solid, reliable reporting that has made it one of the most trusted news programs on television. She was co-anchor and co-managing editor at the “PBS NewsHour” with the late Gwen Ifill from 2013-2016. Woodruff served as the chief Washington correspondent for “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” from 1983-1993. She also anchored PBS’ award-winning weekly documentary series “Frontline with Judy Woodruff” from 1984-1990. In 2011, she was the principal reporter for the PBS documentary “Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime,” and in 2007, she completed an extensive project on the views of young Americans titled “Generation Next: Speak Up. Be Heard.” Before coming to PBS, Woodruff was anchor and senior correspondent at CNN, where she anchored the political news program “Inside
Politics” for 12 years. She also was the White House correspondent for NBC News from 1977-1982. She shared her experiences in the 1982 book “This is Judy Woodruff at the White House.” Outside of the newsroom, Woodruff has been a visiting professor at Duke University’s Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy and a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. She is a graduate of Duke University, where she is a trustee emerita, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Broadcast Journalism/Television, the CINE Lifetime Achievement Award and the Duke Distinguished Alumni Award.
Gwen Ifill
In Memoriam (1955-2016) Gwen Ifill was the award-winning co-anchor and co-managing editor of the “PBS NewsHour” with Judy Woodruff and the moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week,” the longest-running prime-time news and public affairs program on television. Ifill was a veteran political reporter in Washington, covering eight presidential elections and moderating the vice presidential debates in 2004 and 2008. For her coverage of the 2008 presidential election on “Washington Week,” she was the recipient of a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. Ifill joined both “Washington Week” and “PBS NewsHour” in 1999, interviewing newsmakers and reporting on issues ranging from foreign affairs to politics. She was known for her ability to ask tough questions and hold people in power accountable. Before her arrival at PBS, Ifill was a political reporter for The New York Times, where she covered Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. She later served as the chief congressio-
nal and political correspondent for NBC News. Ifill launched her career as an intern for The Boston Herald American, where she wrote about food and education. She joined The Baltimore Evening Sun in 1981 and then moved to The Washington Post in 1984 and covered her first presidential campaign. She was the author of the 2009 book “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama,” which shed light on the impact of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential victory and the emerging young African-American politicians of that time. Ifill was a graduate of Simmons College in Boston. In her lifetime, she received more than 25 honorary doctorates. In 2015, she was awarded the National Press Club’s highest honor, the Fourth Estate Award. She also was inducted into the National Association of Black Journalists’ Hall of Fame in 2012.
Walter Cronkite The journalism program at Arizona State University was named in honor of former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite in 1984. The relationship started when Tom Chauncey, longtime owner of the CBS affiliate in Phoenix, and his son, Tom Chauncey II, leading supporters of journalism education at ASU, contacted their old friend in an effort to advance the program. An endowment on behalf of the program was soon established, and the school was named after “the most trusted man in America.” Over the next quarter of a century, Cronkite lent much more than his name to the school. He was closely involved — advising leadership, guiding students and faculty and traveling to Arizona each year to personally give the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism to one of the nation’s top journalists. The most special relationship, though, was with “our students,” as Cronkite would always call them. Young women and men, some with parents barely old enough to remember Cronkite behind the anchor desk, lit up when he walked into a classroom. They hung on his every word as he thoughtfully answered their questions about the profession he so loved. They lined up just to shake his hand. And he loved every minute of it. He would talk to many students individually, asking them about their classes, goals and dreams. Although Cronkite died on July 17, 2009,
before he was able to visit the school that bears his name in its new downtown Phoenix location, he remains an ever-present part of the school’s heartbeat and direction. His legacy lives on in the spirit and passion with which the school teaches both the skills to do journalism in today’s media environment and the timehonored ethics and news values necessary to do it in the manner that would make our namesake proud. The Cronkite School has established a special memorial fund in Cronkite’s name. For more information on the fund and to learn more about Cronkite’s career, visit cronkite.asu.edu/walter-cronkite.
Previous Cronkite Award Recipients Each fall, a leading figure in journalism is presented with the prestigious Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. The Cronkite Endowment Board of Trustees selects the recipients.
Cronkite Endowment Board of Trustees Ray Artigue
Carol Klimas
Susan Bitter Smith
Beau Lane
David Bodney
Linda Little
Art Brooks
Fran Mallace
Elizabeth Murphy Burns Christopher Callahan Paula Casey Tom Chauncey Araceli De Leon David Eichler Elvira Espinoza Kristin Gilger Derrick Hall Scott Harkey John Hatfield Anita Helt Brian Hogan
Michael Mallace Mary Mazur Denise McManus Art Mobley Mary Morrison Ed Munson Jim Paluzzi Mi-Ai Parrish Tim Riester Mark Rodman Ray Schey Alan Silverman
Win Holden
Matt Silverman
Rich Howe
Robert Stieve
Gordon James
Scott Sutherland
Laura Jordan
Diane Veres
Susan Karis
Clancy Woods
2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984
Scott Pelley Charlie Rose Robin Roberts Bob Schieffer Bob Costas Christiane Amanpour Diane Sawyer Brian Williams Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil Jane Pauley Tom Brokaw Dave Barry Charles Osgood Andy Rooney Al Michaels Bob Woodward Cokie Roberts Tom Johnson Ben Bradlee Roone Arledge Charles Kuralt Bill Moyers Bernard Shaw Helen Thomas Don Hewitt George Will Ted Turner Malcolm Forbes Allen H. Neuharth Katharine Graham Otis Chandler Bill Mauldin William Paley and Frank Stanton
Thank You for Your Support Thank you to our 2017 Cronkite Luncheon table sponsors. Your gift represents an investment in the success of our students today and in the future of journalism.
Cronkite Circle
$10,000 12 News / KPNX-TV ABC15 APS azcentral / Arizona Republic Cox Communications Deeann Jo Griebel Morgan Murphy Media / Elizabeth and Richard Burns Ellie and Michael Ziegler
President’s Circle $6,000 Bonneville Media Phoenix Janice and Leonard Downie FOX Sports Arizona Whiteman Foundation
Dean’s Circle ABC15 Arizona Broadcasters Association Arizona Diamondbacks Arizona Highways Magazine Arizona’s Family 3TV & CBS 5 Ballard Spahr LLP Bushtex, Inc CenturyLink Tom Chauncey – Gust Rosenfeld Clear Channel Outdoor Friends of Public Radio Arizona – KJZZ & K-BACH Tables listed as of October 9, 2017
$3,500
Hardt and Associates iHeartMedia The Jordan Group / Artigue Advisors LaneTerralever Candace and Tim McGuire OH Partners R&R Partners Raza Development Fund RIESTER Sinclair Broadcast Group
cronkite.asu.edu/2020
TOGETHER, OUR POTENTIAL IS LIMITLESS
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication 555 N. Central Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85004-1248 cronkite.asu.edu