News Releases

RTNDF to Honor Bob Schieffer, Tom Curley, Paula Madison and Richard Wiley with First Amendment Awards

January 14, 2008 

Washington—The Radio and Television News Directors Foundation will honor four leaders in journalism and broadcasting at its First Amendment Awards Dinner on Thursday, March 6, in Washington. The honorees are:

• Bob Schieffer, chief Washington correspondent for CBS News and moderator of Face the Nation.

• Tom Curley, president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press.

• Paula Madison, executive vice president for diversity of NBC Universal.

• Richard Wiley, founding partner, Wiley Rein LLP, Washington

 
Schieffer will receive the Leonard Zeidenberg First Amendment Award, named for the late senior Washington correspondent for Broadcasting & Cable magazine. In addition to moderating CBS’s Sunday morning public affairs program, Schieffer is a regular contributor to the CBS Evening News, which he anchored from March 2005 to August 2006. For the past three decades, Schieffer has covered Washington for CBS, one of the few broadcast or print journalists to have covered all four major beats in the Nation's Capital—the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and Capitol Hill. He is the 2003 recipient of RTNDA’s Paul White Award.

Curley will receive the First Amendment Leadership Award, presented to a business or government leader who has made a significant contribution to protecting freedom of the press. Curley has held the top job at the Associated Press since 2003. He helped to establish the Sunshine in Government Initiative, a coalition of news organizations and journalism-related groups, including RTNDA, that promotes accessible, accountable and open government. Before taking the helm at AP, Curley served as president and publisher of USA Today. From 1998 to 2003, he also served as senior vice president of Gannett.

Madison will be honored with the First Amendment Service Award, which is presented to someone of distinction who works in an off-air, management capacity. As the first senior executive in the company’s history to hold a position solely devoted to diversity, Madison is the liaison between the company and key national and local leaders. Madison served as general manager at KNBC-TV in Los Angeles from 2000 to 2007, the first African American woman to hold such a position at a network-owned station in a top five market. Prior to that, she served as vice president and news director of WNBC-TV in New York. She began her career as a newspaper journalist and later worked in television newsrooms in Houston, Tulsa and Dallas.

Wiley will be recognized with a special First Amendment Award for his career-long support of First Amendment rights for broadcasters and for his pivotal role in the development of high-definition television in this country. The former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission leads Wiley Rein’s 80-attorney Communications Practice, the largest in the nation. As FCC chairman, he advocated increased competition and lessened regulation in the communications field. He served for nine years as chairman of the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service, setting the stage for the transition to digital television in the United States. Wiley chairs the board of trustees of the Media Institute.

The awards will be presented and the honorees will make remarks at the 18^th annual First Amendment Awards Dinner at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, 1150 22^nd Street NW, Washington. The dinner is a black-tie event that raises funds for RTNDF’s activities in support of First Amendment freedoms and journalistic excellence. RTNDF provides training, research and scholarship aid for professional and aspiring electronic journalists. More than 600 people attend the dinner each year.

For information about attending the First Amendment Awards Dinner, visit www.rtndf.org or contact Allyson McKithen at 202.312.1563.

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