Monday, May 08, 2006 12:51 PM
HOLLYWOOD – May 8, 2006 – The Los Angeles Press Club has announced Larry King, host of CNN’S “Larry King Live”, has been selected to receive the Club’s prestigious President’s Award for 2006. King will receive his award at the 48th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards to be held June 24, 2006, at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
In selecting King to be honored, LA Press Club President Anthea Raymond said “Larry King has shown us how to use a mass medium to build community. His worldwide call-in shows and on-point interviews make him a model for broadcasters today.”
“It’s always an honor to be saluted by your peers“, King said upon learning he had been named to receive the award, “I look forward to the event.”
King has hosted the Emmy-winning “Larry King Live”, the first worldwide phone-in television talk show and CNN’s highest-rated program, for more than twenty years. King, who celebrates his 50th year in broadcasting in 2007, has conducted more than 40,000 interviews in his career. An Emmy-award winner and author of more than a dozen books, he has been called “Master of the Mike” by TIME Magazine and “The Master Interviewer” by Entertainment Tonight. His guest list over the years has included the famous and infamous, from celebrities to heads of state. Just a few of the icons he has interviewed include Marlon Brando, Johnny Carson, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Billy Graham, Michael Jordan, Yasser Arafat, Oprah Winfrey, and literally thousands more.
King has received numerous honors for his work including the Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, The George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence In Broadcasting,
an Emmy for Outstanding Interview/Interviewer, and even a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Active in many charitable and philanthropic endeavors, in 1988 King founded the Larry King Cardiac Foundation which gives grants to pay medical costs for individuals needing treatment for heart disease. He also recently established a $1 million journalism scholarship at George Washington University for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
In addition to the presentation of the President’s Award to Larry King, awards will also be given to individuals and media outlets who achieved editorial excellence in print, broadcast and online reporting in 2005. Additionally, honors will be bestowed upon two other distinguished journalists:
• Dave Lopez, reporter for CBS 2 News, is the recipient of the Joseph M. Quinn Award for Lifetime Achievement. Lopez, who has been with CBS 2 since 1977, has covered some of Southern California’s biggest stories including the Northridge earthquake and the OJ Simpson trial.
• Kevin Sites, war correspondent for Yahoo! News’ “Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, has been chosen to receive the 2006 Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism. Sites has spent the last five years covering wars and disasters from some of the most volatile regions on earth including Iraq, Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.
For further information, or for tickets, advertising or sponsorship opportunities, contact LA Press Club Executive Director Diana Ljungaeus at 323-469-8180 or diana@lapressclub.org; or LA Press Club Publicist Katherine Agard at 310-435-2822 or katherine@lapressclub.org.
