NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Media Center on Thursday night.
NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports was one of seven women being honored by the organization, founded by Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, and Jane Fonda.
The other women being honored alongside Mitchell include GMA’s Robin Roberts, as well as Mariana Ardila Trujillo, Loreta Ross, Salamishah Tillet, Loreen Arbus, and Maria Martinez.
The Women’s Revolution in Iran received a special WMC Solidarity Tribute from the co-founders of the Women’s Media Center.
At the event, held at the Mandarin Hotel in New York, Mitchell spoke about how much the award meant to her, saying, “it comes from women I have admired for decades. Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, and Jane Fonda – who is an inspiration to us all – the founders of the Women’s Media Center. And Pat Mitchell – the first recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. And, of course, the amazing Julie Burton, the WMC President, and CEO who keeps WMC on target and moving forward. You all honor me tonight with your presence and support.
Mitchell also provided backstory regarding her career path, talking about the time she started as a copyboy in Philadelphia, rising to the cover the police beat before moving to the City Hall beat.
She then moved to a local station in Washington, DC, after which she joined NBC News.
“When I came to NBC News, I was blessed with the friendship and mentorship of my then-NBC colleague, Judy Woodruff, and when I started covering the White House, Lesley Stahl of CBS and Cokie Roberts of NPR and ABC. We were a band of sisters, competing for exclusives, but commiserating on the campaign plane or Air Force One about husbands, children, boyfriends, aging parents, and a host of other challenges at home,” Mitchell added.
She also spoke about how despite advancements of women up the corporate ladder within news divisions, there has been a downward trend elsewhere.
Mirchell noted how women’s work is being undone across the world, saying, “not just in China, but in Afghanistan, where women broadcasters, judges, and teachers are being driven back into the Middle Ages by the Taliban. In Iran, where women are beaten and jailed – and some, killed, for challenging the regime, according to human rights advocates.”
She ended her remarks with a quote from Maya Angelou’s To Form a More Perfect Union poem saying, “We recognize that no nation can boast of balance until each member of a nation is equally employed and equally rewarded.”