Washington — Journalists Ben Bradlee, Tom Brokaw and Judy Woodruff are the honorary chairs of Sunshine Week 2007, March 11-17.
Bradlee is former executive editor and now vice president at large of The Washington Post. Brokaw is former anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News and now a contributing reporter and producer for NBC News documentaries. Woodruff is special correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and anchor of Conversations with Judy Woodruff on Bloomberg Television.
Sunshine Week (www.sunshineweek.org) is an open government initiative spearheaded by the American Society of Newspaper Editors (www.asne.org). Entering its third year, the program encourages newspapers, broadcasters, online content producers, schools, libraries, civic groups and others to engage in discussions about the importance of protecting public access to government information and meetings. It is supported by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
As honorary chairs, Bradlee, Brokaw and Woodruff will serve as spokespeople for Sunshine Week 2007 and support the initiative’s efforts to empower and educate people about their right to know what government is doing, and why.
“Open government laws are absolutely essential to getting the information officials might prefer to see locked away in a safe,” Bradlee said. “People may not think about Sunshine Laws every day, but when you need them, you need them. When you’re trying to get information, you know that with these laws you’re on the side of right. Sunshine Week is a good opportunity for journalists, the public and government officials to reinforce the importance of these laws and the foundations they’re built on.”
“If we present ourselves to the world as patrons of democracy, then we must be vigilant stewards at home of the oxygen that it requires – access to what our government is doing and the right to speak freely about it,” Brokaw said. “Those who comprised what I call the Greatest Generation fought valiantly to preserve and protect those freedoms. It is up to us to ensure during Sunshine Week and all year that their sacrifices were not for naught.”
“Government decision making in the United States should be as transparent as possible. Ours is a democratic system – of, by and for the people – and we ought to know what’s going on,” Woodruff said. “While I don’t think you can create a blanket policy covering every situation, the default position should be for disclosure, for openness. We’re a stronger society because information – good and bad – flows freely. Sunshine Week is a time to celebrate and protect that strength.”
About the Sunshine Week 2007 Honorary Chairs:
Ben Bradlee
Following his graduation from Harvard University, Bradlee joined the U.S. Navy and served in the South Pacific. Upon his discharge in 1948, Bradlee was among a group of investors who started the New Hampshire Sunday News in Manchester, but before the year was out, he’d landed a job as a reporter for The Washington Post. In 1951, Bradlee moved to Paris as press attaché for the American Embassy. A few years later, he joined Newsweek magazine as a European correspondent, and returned to Washington in 1957 as a political correspondent.
Bradlee left Newsweek to become managing editor of the Post in 1965 – four years after helping to broker the deal for the newspaper to purchase the magazine. In 1968, he was promoted to executive editor, a post he held until 1991 when he retired as editor and became a vice president at large for the Post.
During his tenure at the helm of the newspaper, Bradlee oversaw coverage of major news stories including The Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation. He also was the driving force behind the 1976 launch of the Style section and The Washington Post Magazine the following year.
The Washington Post earned 18 Pulitzer Prizes under Bradlee’s leadership. Among his many awards, in 1998, Bradlee received the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Bradlee received Marymount University’s Ethics Award in 2005, and in 2006, Bradlee was awarded an honorary doctorate from Georgetown University.
In 1995, Bradlee published his best-selling memoir, “A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures.”
Tom Brokaw
After graduation from the University of South Dakota, Brokaw began a journalism career at KMTV in Omaha in 1962, and by 1965 was anchoring the late evening news on WSB-TV in Atlanta, soon moving to KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. He began his career with NBC News in 1966, serving as White House correspondent from 1973-76. He then anchored the morning “Today” program until 1981, when he was named anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News.
Since stepping down from the anchor post in 2004, Brokaw has produced and reported several long-form documentaries, “Tom Brokaw Reports,” for NBC.
Among the many stories he has covered, Brokaw was at the scene when the Berlin Wall fell, he reported from Iraq and Afghanistan, was the first U.S. newsman to interview former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, the first network correspondent to report on human rights abuses in Tibet, and he anchored the evening news from Normandy on the 60th anniversary of D-Day.
The numerous awards bestowed on Brokaw include the Emmy, Peabody, Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement, Records of Achievement from the Foundation for the National Archives, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University, and the first George Catlett Marshall Medal given to a journalist by the U.S. Army.
Brokaw’s 1998 book “The Greatest Generation” was followed in 1999 by “The Greatest Generation Speaks,” a third book in 2001 titled “An Album of Memories,” and in 2002 by Brokaw’s fourth best-seller, “A Long Way From Home.”
Judy Woodruff
A graduate of Duke University, where she now is a trustee emerita, Woodruff got her start in political reporting covering the Georgia legislature for WAGA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Atlanta. She also anchored the noon and evening news, later joining NBC News as a general assignment reporter in Atlanta.
Woodruff was NBC News’ White House correspondent from 1977-82, and served one year as Chief Washington Correspondent for the Today Show. She joined PBS in 1983, spending 10 years as Chief Washington Correspondent for The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and from 1984-90 anchored the weekly documentary series, Frontline with Judy Woodruff. She moved to CNN in 1993 as anchor of Inside Politics and spent 12 years there as an anchor and senior correspondent.
When she left CNN in 2005, Woodruff spent time as a visiting fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and recently was a visiting professor at Duke University’s Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy.
Now working with PBS again, Woodruff is a special correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and is working with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions on Generation Next: Speak Up. Be Heard, which culls interviews with young people into an hourlong documentary. In addition, she anchors the monthly Conversations with Judy Woodruff, which airs on Bloomberg Television.
A founding co-chair of the International Women’s Media Foundation, Woodruff serves as a trustee of The Freedom Forum and Global Rights: Partners for Justice. She is a member of the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, and is on the board of the National Museum of American History.
Among the myriad awards she has been presented, Woodruff is the recipient of several Emmy and CableACE Awards, the Futrell Award from Duke University, and the Edward R. Murrow Award.
In 1982, Woodruff wrote the book, “This is Judy Woodruff at the White House.”
About Sunshine Week: Sunshine Week is a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public’s right to know. Sunshine Week is led by ASNE and is funded by a grant from Knight Foundation. For more information, see www.sunshineweek.org.
About Knight Foundation: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. For more information about Knight Foundation, go to www.knightfoundation.org.