News Releases

Steve Kroft to Receive Paul White Award from RTDNA

Contact: Stacey Staniak, 202-467-5214, staceys@rtdna.org

For Immediate Release: November 9, 2009

Washington -- The Radio Television Digital News Association has named Steve Kroft the 2010 Paul White Award winner. Kroft, correspondent for “60 Minutes,” will receive RTDNA’s highest honor on April 12 during the RTDNA convention in Las Vegas.

Kroft joined “60 Minutes” in 1989. In 1990 he was the first American journalist to report in depth from Chernobyl, the contaminated site of a Soviet nuclear plant. In 1992 Kroft’s interview with presidential candidate Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton is cited as one of the defining moments of that election. In 2008 Kroft interviewed Barack and Michelle Obama in their first post-election interview. His reports from Pakistan in 2000 revealed that nation’s nuclear weapons program, political instability and its ties to Islamic militant groups.

"Steve Kroft's practice of our craft stands as a benchmark providing substance, depth, public service and thoughtful style,” said Ed Esposito, chairman of the committee that selects the Paul White winner. “Steve not only carries forward the standard of the legendary "60 Minutes"; his body of work clearly places him at the top of our profession, and exemplifies leadership worthy of the Paul White Award."

Before joining “60 Minutes,” Kroft was a principal correspondent for “West 57th,” a CBS News magazine. He joined CBS in 1980 from WPLG-TV in Miami. At CBS he worked as a foreign correspondent covering the TWA hijacking in Beirut, shooting massacres at airports in Rome and Vienna and the Achille Lauro cruise ship hijacking.

Kroft has received the Alfred I. DuPont Columbia University silver baton, Peabody Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award, numerous Emmys including the Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Journalism, and the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award from Quinnipiac University. He will join his “60 Minutes” colleagues Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley and Don Hewitt as Paul White honorees.

RTDNA established the Paul White Award in 1956 to honor the broadcast news pioneer who served as the first news director at CBS. The award recognizes an individual’s lifetime contribution to electronic journalism. In addition to the “60 Minutes” winners, past Paul White recipients include Christiane Amanpour, Charles Gibson, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Bob Schieffer, Ted Koppel, Pauline Frederick and Edward R. Murrow.

RTDNA@NAB, which will take place at the Las Vegas Hilton April 11-14, is the premier conference and exhibition for radio, television and online news. To learn more about RTDNA@NAB and the Paul White Award, visit RTDNA.org.

RTDNA is the world’s largest professional organization devoted exclusively to electronic journalism. RTDNA represents local and network news executives in broadcasting, cable and other electronic media in more than 30 countries.