Murrow awards go to public radio, TV journalists


Amos

Woodruff
PULLMAN – Judy Woodruff, senior correspondent for “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” and National Public Radio correspondent Deborah Amos will be honored at the annual Edward R. Murrow Symposium April 20 at the Beasley coliseum at WSU Pullman.
“Judy and Deborah embody the Murrow standards of ethics, responsibility and journalistic courage,” said Lawrence Pintak, founding dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. Woodruff will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award/Television; Amos will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award/Radio.
 

Pintak
The Murrow awards are presented during the day-long Edward R. Murrow Symposium, sponsored by the Murrow College. Murrow was a 1930 graduate of WSU when it was Washington State College.
Previous winners of the Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award include Don Hewitt, creator and former executive producer of the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes,” “Frontline” executive producer David Fanning, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Daniel Schorr, Walter Cronkite, Sam Donaldson, Bernard Shaw, Keith Jackson, Ted Turner and Al Neuharth.
“The choice of this year’s recipients elegantly underlines the value we place on the integration of Northwest Public Radio and KWSU/KTNW television into the college,” Pintak said.
Northwest Public Radio, a statewide NPR network owned by WSU, became part of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication on Feb. 1. Public television stations KWSU and KTNW were moved from Information Technology to the Murrow College in September 2009.
 
Woodruff and Amos will participate in a roundtable discussion led by Dean Pintak, a long-time television journalist and specialist in Middle East issues, at the 7 p.m. symposium.
Woodruff has covered politics and general news for more than three decades at CNN, NBC and PBS. Before joining PBS, she served as an anchor and senior correspondent for CNN, anchoring the weekday political program “Inside Politics.” She also played a central role in the network’s political coverage and other major news stories.
She previously served as the chief Washington correspondent for “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” and also anchored PBS’s award-winning weekly documentary series, “Frontline with Judy Woodruff.”
Woodruff worked as the White House correspondent for NBC News from 1977 to 1982 and wrote a book on her experiences, “This is Judy Woodruff at the White House.” She also has been a visiting professor at Duke University’s Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy and was a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Joan Sorenstein Center on the Press. She is a Duke University graduate.
Amos covers the Middle East for NPR News; her reports can be heard on “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “Weekend Edition.”
She returned to NPR after working for a decade in television news, including ABC’s “Nightline” and “World News Tonight” and the PBS programs “Frontline” and “NOW with Bill Moyers.”
Prior to her work with ABC News, she spent 16 years with NPR. She served as the London bureau chief and was based in Amman, Jordan, as a foreign correspondent. Amos won several awards for her reporting, including the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award and a Breakthru Award.
Her coverage of the Gulf War won her widespread recognition. Her latest book, “Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East,” was published last autumn.
Upon joining NPR, Amos first worked as a director and then a producer for “Weekend All Things Considered,” before focusing on documentaries. She received a number of awards for her documentary “Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown,” and in 1984, she received a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for “Refugees.” She began her broadcast journalism career after graduating from the University of Florida.
The day of the symposium will include a discussion on “Transforming Public Broadcasting,” featuring Amos; Ellen McDonnell, NPR executive director of news programming; Madhulika Sikka, executive producer of Morning Edition; and Steve Bass, president and CEO of Oregon Public Broadcasting.
The day also will feature a series of breakout sessions and discussions on a range of media subjects including social communications, digital newspapers, foreign reporting and crisis communications.
On April 21, Woodruff and Amos will take part in an 11:30 a.m. luncheon at the City Club in Seattle.