CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King will receive the 39th Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism at a special luncheon this coming Tuesday, February 21, in Phoenix.
The award from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication will be presented to her at the annual Cronkite Award Luncheon, an event that attracts more than 1,000 guests every year, including industry leaders from the worlds of media, politics, business, and education.
Since 1984 the award, named after the late legendary CBS News anchor, has recognized prominent journalists’ accomplishments and leadership throughout their careers.
“I am honored to accept the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. The work myself and other journalists do is important, but I don’t do it alone. My colleagues at CBS News also share in this honor, and I’m inspired by the unique and meaningful stories we tell,” King said in September when it was announced that she would be the award recipient.
King is being recognized for her decades of work that spans notable interviews and numerous significant events. She interviewed the embattled R&B singer R. Kelly, former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, and her mother, Marian Robinson, in their first TV interview together.
In addition, King has covered George Floyd’s murder, the Derek Chauvin verdict, the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 in Newtown, Ct., the Republican and Democratic conventions in 2016, and the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy on the Texas border.
She has also reported on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., prior to the museum’s opening and the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to legalize same-sex marriage.