The Radio Television Digital News Foundation (RTDNF) has announced recipients of the 31st annual First Amendment Awards, which honor journalists and news organizations “that exemplify responsible journalism and who practice their constitutionally guaranteed duty to seek and report the truth.”
This year, RTDNF will honor 10 individuals and organizations, an expanded group that recognizes the 2021 and 2022 recipients of the First Amendment Awards.
“RTDNF is so proud to honor these individuals and organizations as recipients of the First Amendment Awards,” RTDNA/RTDNF executive director Dan Shelley said in a statement. “We thank each of them for their continued service to the First Amendment.”
Honorees will be recognized at the First Amendment Awards Dinner on March 9 at the Marriott Marquis in Washington.
NBCUniversal News Group chairman Cesar Conde is the 2021 recipient of the Leonard Zeidenberg First Amendment Award. This award is presented to “a radio or television journalist or news exec who has made a major contribution to the protection of First Amendment freedoms.”
ABC News president Kim Godwin is the 2022 recipient of the RTDNF’s First Amendment Service Award, which honors “professionals in local or network news who work in an off-air, management, largely behind-the-scenes capacity.”
CBS’ Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan is the 2022 recipient of the RTDNF First Amendment Award, which is presented to “a business, government or other leader who has made a significant contribution to the protection of the First Amendment and freedom of the press.”
NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki is the 2022 recipient of the First Amendment Clarity Award, “which recognizes a journalist or group of journalists who go to extraordinary lengths to provide meaning and context to complicated news stories or issues of extreme public importance.”
To find out who the additional/non TV-news 2021-’22 RTDNF First Amendment Award honorees are, click here. The 2020 RTDNF First Amendment Award honorees can be found here.