Photo Courtesy: Newhouse School
Yesterday the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University held its fifth annual Mirror Awards ceremony, honoring the best in media reporting. You can read about the winners from FishbowlNY, here.
MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski hosted the event, which also presented special awards to Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.
Scarborough opened up the event with a friendly jab at his former executive producer, Chris Licht, who was in the audience.
“Our connection to the Newhouse school is through our executive producer Chris Licht. We have found working with him through the years that not only do you teach your students how to get out there in the media world and do it better than anyone else, but we have to say the trait that you instill that really means more than any other is loyalty. Sticking together through the years no matter what. How is CBS Chris?”
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was to present the award to Roberts. The Comcast CEO was unable to attend as he was in Switzerland securing the rights to the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 Olympics for NBC. Bewkes took the opportunity to poke fun at his business partner… and now competitor:
“Some of you may feel that giving a media and journalism award to Brian, within a year of him closing on NBCUniversal, is kind of like giving a Nobel Prize for peace to a President of the United States beginning his first term,” Bewkes quipped. “But no worries, you can work your way out of these things.”
Roberts accepted via video, where he sung the praises of NBC News:
“When Comcast had a chance to buy NBC Universal the single most exciting part of it, for me, was the knowledge that we were getting the number one news franchise in America,” Roberts said. “‘NBC Nightly News,’ the ‘Today Show,’ ‘Meet the Press’ are all number one and have been for a long time in their respective timeslots. But the passion and integrity of what they stand for, is something that I personally welcome and embrace the opportunity to transform what Comcast means and does, and stand behind the men and women of NBC News.”
His father, Comcast founder Ralph Roberts, then took the stage to speak.
It was packed house at the Plaza Hotel, with over 350 people attending, including some of the biggest names in TV.
TVNewser spotted Turner broadcasting CEO Phil Kent and Turner Sports and ad sales chief David Levy chatting with Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav. We chatted with CNN/U.S. chief Ken Jautz, who was joined by CNN EVP Mark Whitaker and ad sales chief Greg D’alba and programming executive Bart Feder.
We saw former CBS News chief Andrew Heyward working the room, and NBC News senior VP Alex Wallace was on the guest list. We also chatted with former ABC News and NBC News producer and writer Lee Kamlet, who is now the Dean of Communications at Quinnipiac.