ABC’s Charlie Gibson will be honored with Quinnipiac University’s Fred Friendly First Amendment Award this June. Friendly, a radio and TV news pioneer, famously left the business in 1966 when CBS chose to air The Lucy Show instead of a Senate hearing on U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In 2005, George Clooney played Fred Friendly in Good Night and Good Luck.
Past honorees of the Friendly award include Christiane Amanpour, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Bob Schieffer and Lesley Stahl.
As an interesting aside, the University is battling students over the school’s Newspaper editorial board. The school decided to hand-pick the board for next school year, and that’s not sitting well with the students. Quinnipiac Chronicle editors are now considering severing ties with the school permanently.