Williams, Amanpour, Lamb, Join LAB Giants

The Library of American Broadcasting’s 2011 Giants of Broadcasting honorees will include NBC’s Brian Williams, ABC Christiane Amanpour, C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb as well as CBS News Sunday Morning. They and the other inductees will be honored at an awards ceremony and luncheon on Friday, Oct.14, at New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel.

Bill Baker, president emeritus of WNET New York and himself a Giant of Broadcasting, will serve as this year’s master of ceremonies. The luncheon is the Library’s largest fundraising event, providing the resources to maintain its extensive broadcasting archives and collection of oral histories. The cocktail reception begins at 11:30 a.m. and the awards ceremony at noon.

The other honorees are Frederick Pierce, Frances Preston, John Dille III, and posthumous inductees Dawson B “Tack” Nail, Rick Buckley and James Arness.

Full bios for all the honorees:

BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, has been dubbed the “Walter Cronkite of the 21st century.” He has received 11 Edward R. Murrow awards, 12 Emmy awards and the broadcasting industry’s prestigious George Foster Peabody award. In his first five years at NBC he became the most highly decorated network evening news anchor of the modern era and received praise for his award-winning coverage of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.

Previously, Williams was NBC News’ chief White House correspondent and anchor and managing editor of The News With Brian Williams on MSNBC and CNBC. He has covered several nominating conventions and presidential campaigns and elections, and has moderated seven presidential debates. Time magazine has named Williams one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, now the anchor of ABC’s Sunday morning political affairs program, This Week with Christiane Amanpour, made her journalistic reputation abroad, first for CNN and then in association with CBS. She also provides international analysis on ABC News’ other programs and platforms, including anchoring primetime documentaries on international subjects.

Prior to ABC, Amanpour was chief international correspondent at CNN and worked for nearly three decades reporting on and from the world’s major hot spots including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Somalia, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Rwanda, the Balkans and the U.S. during Hurricane Katrina.

After 9/11 Amanpour was the first international correspondent to secure interviews with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Amanpour has interviewed other world leaders, as well as the presidents of Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, and Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat, among others. She has received every major broadcast award, including an inaugural Television Academy Award, nine News and Documentary Emmys, four George Foster Peabody Awards and the Edward R. Murrow award. In 2010 Amanpour was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

CBS SUNDAY MORNING has been one of television’s best and most enduring series for over three decades. The 90-minute newsmagazine program covers not only general news but also a blend of culture and nature. It has been widely praised for its subtle style and broad appeal. This year, the following talent from in front of and behind the program’s cameras are being honored as Giants of Broadcasting:

• CHARLES KURALT was the first anchor of the program and was a venerable American journalist. He served as host of the show for 15 years and had a long career with CBS, including hosting “On the Road” segments on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.
• ROBERT “SHAD” NORTHSHIELD was an innovator in television news who established the program and also served as a news producer at all three of the major broadcast networks. At NBC, Northshield produced both The Today Show and The Huntley-Brinkley Report as well as the network’s special coverage of presidential elections and space launches, including the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.
• CHARLES OSGOOD, often referred to as CBS News’ poet-in-residence, has been anchor of the program since 1994. He has also been an anchor and reporter for many other CBS broadcasts including CBS Morning News, the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and the CBS Sunday Night News. Additionally, Osgood anchors and writes The Osgood File, his daily news commentary on the CBS Radio Network. Osgood’s commentaries draw one of the largest audiences of any network radio feature and he was called “one of the last great broadcast writers” by his Sunday Morning predecessor, Charles Kuralt.
• RAND MORRISON has been executive producer of the show for over 10 years. He is the winner of 10 Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards and a duPont award. Before joining Sunday Morning, Morrison was executive producer of CBS News Productions, where he produced, among other projects, the critically acclaimed 13-part Century of Country series on the history of country music for The Nashville Network. Prior to that, Morrison served in senior management positions on several CBS newsmagazines, including senior broadcast producer for Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel and 48 Hours and senior producer for Eye to Eye with Connie Chung.

BRIAN LAMB is the creator, founder and remains the chief executive officer of C-SPAN (formally the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Networks), and he has been at the helm of its now three channels since the first launched 32 years ago. After various jobs in communications, Lamb persuaded the cable industry to take on the mission of a nonprofit channel that would broadcast the newly authorized coverage of Congress and the channel began broadcasts two years later.

Lamb is a regular on-air presence at C-SPAN and he has conducted over 1,000 interviews on C-SPAN programs including Booknotes, in which he interviewed nonfiction authors, and Q&A, an hour-long program on Sunday evening with leaders in politics, media, education or technology. Lamb has interviewed every president since Lyndon Johnson and many world leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev.

He has also served as a Senate press secretary and worked for the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy at a time when a national strategy was being developed for communications satellites. Lamb also reported for UPI radio and The Media Report and was the Washington bureau chief for Cablevision magazine. He has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Humanities Medal.

FREDERICK PIERCE was president and chief operating officer of ABC during one of the network’s most successful periods. As president of ABC, Pierce had responsibility for all of the operating divisions and the financial, legal, administrative and corporate affairs staffs. During his tenure, ABC achieved unparalleled growth, gaining leadership in prime time, daytime and early morning programming, greatly improving its leadership in sports and adding significantly to its affiliate body. As a result, ABC became the largest advertising medium in the world, and the owned TV stations the most profitable station group in the country.

As executive vice president, Pierce continued responsibility for ABC Television and added ABC Radio, ABC Publishing and ABC Video Enterprises. The latter included the acquisition and operation of three cable network program services (ESPN, Lifetime and Arts and Entertainment). Pierce began his career with ABC as an analyst in the company’s research department and held various executive positions throughout the network working on sales, programming, finance and strategic planning.

FRANCES PRESTON served as president and CEO of BMI for nearly two decades, during which time the company’s revenue more than tripled. Under Preston’s leadership, BMI enjoyed a consistent record of increasing revenues and royalty distributions to its songwriters, composers and music publishers. BMI has been a pioneer in licensing the new digital media, and the Preston era saw a transformation of the company’s business in which more than half of all revenues now come from non-broadcast sources.

From her early work signing Southern regional songwriters, to overseeing a company that represents legendary international artists from Sting to Gloria Estefan, Paul Simon to Janet Jackson and many of today’s rising young stars, Preston led the effort to build BMI’s repertoire into the world’s most popular and delivered a royalty system to match. Fortune magazine called her “one of the true powerhouses of the pop music business.”

Preston plays a vital role in a number of other organizations, both inside and outside the music industry. She previously served on the commission for the White House Record Library during President Carter’s administration and was the first non-performing woman invited to join New York’s prestigious Friar’s Club. Preston was named an American Broadcast Pioneer by the Broadcasters’ Foundation for her more than 40 years of contributions to the industry, and she was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

JOHN DILLE III is officially president of Federated Media, a 15-station radio group with stations in Indiana and Michigan, but unofficially one of the broadcasting industry’s major statesmen. He has served as chairman of the Radio Advertising Bureau and the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Board. He has also chaired the NAB/National Radio Broadcasters Association Unification Task Force that united NAB with the National Association of Radio Broadcasters. He was past president of the Indiana Broadcasters Association.

Dille has received many industry honors, including the NAB’s National Radio Award in 2005, induction into the Indiana Broadcaster Hall of Fame and the IBA Lifetime Achievement award. In addition, he is also an adjunct professor at the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, Phoenix. Dille began his career as a copy boy for the Washington Post, served stints as a newspaper reporter for Britain’s Thompson Newspapers Ltd., and his family-owned Indiana newspapers the Mishawaka Times (Indiana) and the Elkhart Truth before making the transition to broadcasting.

DAWSON B “TACK” NAIL, known as a “dean” of the Washington communications press corps, spent more than 50 years as one of the most prominent reporters covering broadcasting and telecommunications. Nail was the longtime executive editor of Warren Communications News’ Television Digest and Communications Daily. He arrived in Washington in 1955 with Broadcasting magazine (now Broadcasting & Cable), then moved to Television Digest, where he stayed until his semi-retirement.

Nail was known throughout telecom and broadcasting circles both for his unequalled access to the powerful, and his friendships, which were both lifelong and unforgiving. It was said that being a friend of Tack Nail wasn’t for sissies. He never gave up his Oklahoma heritage and demeanor and, combined with his outrageousness, became a legendary figure in the history of broadcasting and trade journalism. He joined C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb on the first C-SPAN call-in show, in 1980, and was a panelist on other news shows, including NBC’s Meet the Press.

Nail’s journalism honors include a long list of awards, among them the National Association of Broadcasters Spirit of Broadcasting Award. He was a former president of the D.C. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and was a member of the chapter’s Hall of Fame. Nail also was a long-time board member of the Broadcasters Foundation and the Library of American Broadcasting, as well as a member of other media and journalism groups including the Broadcast Pioneers and the National Press Club’s Golden Owls (members with more than 50 years of service).

RICK BUCKLEY was the legendary chairman and president of Buckley Broadcasting who guided the company for nearly four decades, maintaining it as one of the few radio groups in America that remained privately owned and operated in the age of corporate radio. Buckley succeeded his father as president and went on to run a company that owns and operates 20 radio stations in New York, California and Connecticut and syndicates to over 400 stations.

Buckley’s career in broadcasting began in 1960 as a page at the NBC. He worked in radio in capacities ranging from sales to general manager. Buckley is a past chairman of the board of the RAB, a past chairman of the Southern California Broadcasters Association, and served as the finance chairman on the board of directors of the Broadcasters Foundation. He was known for his commitment to excellence through local programming and public service and in June of this year Buckley was named to the New York State Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame.

JAMES ARNESS was one of American’s most beloved actors, best known for portraying Marshal Matt Dillon in the CBS TV series Gunsmoke which entertained audiences for 20 years. Gunsmoke was the longest running dramatic series in U.S. television history and Arness created an enduring character in American culture.

John Wayne was instrumental in landing Arness his starring role in Gunsmoke. He recommended that CBS audition the 6-foot-7 actor. Arness made his film debut in The Farmer’s Daughter and after Gunsmoke ended he performed in several western-themed movies and television series, including How the West Was Won, and five made-for-television Gunsmoke movies. His role as Zeb Macahan in How the West Was Won made him into a cult figure in many European countries. Arness co-starred with John Wayne in Big Jim McLain, Hondo, Island in the Sky and The Sea Chase.

Though identified with westerns, he also appeared in two science fiction films, The Thing from Another World and Them! Arness was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and on the 50th anniversary of television People magazine included him among the top 25 television stars of all time. Arness was also nominated for several Emmy Awards.

Reservations for tables and individual tickets to the event may be arranged through Jessica Wolin at 212-685-4233 or [email protected].

The Library Of American Broadcasting — located at the University of Maryland — is entering its 40th year serving as a national information resource for the radio and television industries and the academic communities that rely upon it for depth and expertise. Its collections of historic documents, professional papers, oral and video histories, books and photographs are the nation’s most extensive.