Quinnipiac Honors NBC's Richard Engel & CBS’ Bob Simon

 

Quinnipiac University honored NBC News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel and the late CBS News Correspondent Bob Simon Tuesday, June 9, at the 22nd annual Fred Friendly First Amendment Award luncheon at the Metropolitan Club in New York City.

Engel received the Fred Friendly Award, while Simon was recognized posthumously with the 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award.

"Time and again throughout their careers, Richard and Bob put themselves in harm's way to give context to the stories of the day," said Lee Kamlet, dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac. "Although Fred and Richard are from two different eras of broadcast journalism, they have one thing in common: the desire to speak truth to power, no matter the consequences."

Since 1994, the School of Communications has presented the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award to honor those who have shown courage and forthrightness in preserving the rights set forth in the First Amendment. The award bears the name of the former CBS News president and champion of freedom of speech.

"Fred used to say that the job of the journalist is to explain complicated stories," Friendly's widow, Ruth told Engel. "That's what you do, Richard. You illuminate and elucidate the news, at times risking your life."

Engel is widely regarded as one of America's leading foreign correspondents for his coverage of wars, revolutions and political transitions around the world over the last 20 years. He has been recognized for his outstanding reporting on the 2011 revolution in Egypt, the conflict in Libya and unrest throughout the Arab world. 

Like Fred Friendly, Engel is dyslexic. He said he first learned to persevere despite the disorder while attending a survival camp in Wyoming. "I was given a gun and sent out into the woods for a week without food," Engel recalled. "I realized if that if I could do that, maybe other things like math class weren't so intimidating. If you're given a responsibility with real consequences and succeed at it, the confidence you build can change your life."

 

Engel was named chief foreign correspondent of NBC News in April 2008. His reports appear on all platforms of NBC News, including "NBC Nightly News," "Today," "Meet the Press," "Dateline," and NBCNews.com. His reports also frequently appear on the cable news network MSNBC.

Engel's work has received numerous awards, including seven news and documentary Emmy Awards. Most recently, he was honored with a Peabody Award for his coverage of the rise of ISIS.

"I see our jobs - our responsibility going forward in this digital age--as seeking out truth and separating it from the chaos; finding the music hidden in the cacophony," Engel said. "We have to be brave enough to accept it, even if it goes counter to what we think."

Simon, the longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent and legendary CBS News foreign news reporter, died Feb. 11, 2015, in a car accident in New York City. He was among a handful of elite journalists who covered most major overseas conflicts and news stories beginning in the late 1960s.

"Former colleague Dan Rather once described Bob as 'old school, in the style of Edward R. Murrow: notepad, shoe-leather, play no favorites, pull no punches, and go where the action is,'" Ruth Friendly said. "Although we lost Bob this year, his legacy is a body of work that I hope will inspire the next generations of journalists."

Simon earned an unprecedented number of awards. Simon had been contributing regularly to "60 Minutes" since 1996. At the same time, he was a correspondent for all seven seasons of "60 Minutes II," from January 1999 to June 2005, after which he became a full-time "60 Minutes" correspondent. The 2014-15 season was his 19th on the broadcast. He is the third recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award; previous recipients were Floyd Abrams in 2008 and Barbara Walters in 2014.

Jeffrey Fager, executive producer of “60 Minutes,” accepted the award on behalf of Simon's family. "It's difficult to think of CBS News without him," Fager said. "For 47 years, Bob covered every kind of story in over 130 countries. He never would have expected this award. We all think of him as the quintessential foreign correspondent. He wasn't seeking the spotlight. He thought of himself as just a regular reporter. He never inserted himself into the story."

Previous recipients of the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award are: Dan Rather, Bill Moyers, Lesley Stahl, Ted Koppel, Tom Brokaw, Robert MacNeil, Jim Lehrer, Don Hewitt, Peter Jennings, Mike Wallace, Christiane Amanpour, Tom Bettag, Tim Russert, Bob Schieffer, Steve Kroft, Charles Gibson, Morley Safer, Gwen Ifill, David Fanning, Martha Raddatz and Scott Pelley.

Among those who attended the luncheon were: Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, senior vice president, news administration, CBS News; Liz Cole, executive producer, "Dateline NBC;" Chris Licht, executive producer, "CBS This Morning;" Tom Mazzarelli, co-executive producer, NBC's "Today Show;" Ed O'Keefe, vice president, CNN; David Rhodes, president, CBS News; Richard Roth, senior U.N. correspondent, CNN; Eric Shawn, anchor, Fox News; Harry Smith, NBC News correspondent; author Gay Talese; Deborah Turness, president, NBC News; and David Ushery, anchor, WNBC News 4 New York.

Dennis House, anchor of WFSB-TV, Channel 3, left, Denise D'Ascenzo, anchor of WFSB-TV, Channel 3, Todd Piro, anchor of NBC Connecticut and David Ushery, anchor of WNBC-TV, Channel 4 in New York, were among those who attended the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award luncheon.

 

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