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BOB SCHIEFFER, KEN BURNS, AND TIM RUSSERT TO RECEIVE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT HONORS AT THE NEWS & DOCUMENTARY EMMY AWARDS, SEPT 22

New York, N.Y. – July 22, 2008 – CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer, PBS documentarian Ken Burns, and former NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and Host of “Meet The Press” Tim Russert will receive Lifetime Achievement honors at the 29th Annual News and Documentary Emmy® Awards, to be held on September 22 at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, in New York City. 

"Bob Schieffer has given CBS News more than 30 years of high quality reporting and anchoring and has won the admiration of both his fellow professionals and the American public," said Bill Small, Chairman of the News and Documentary Awards. "He is a role model for any aspiring journalist. As for Ken Burns, he has for many years set the standard for the very best in long form documentaries in a wide range of subject matter, from the Civil War to baseball to Mark Twain to jazz. It is a record of the highest quality in documentary production and without question many of the very best broadcasts on PBS bear his skilled production touch."

“I am especially pleased that we are paying tribute to Tim Russert,” said Peter Price, President and CEO of NATAS. “Tim was the supreme example of a dedicated newsman, admired by his host of friends at NBC and elsewhere for his work ethic, his dedication to first class journalism, and his love of family. He was truly special.”

Bob Schieffer
Bob Schieffer

Bob Schieffer has covered every important beat in Washington, including the White House, the Pentagon and Congress. He has won six Emmy awards, two Sigma Delta Chi awards, and the Radio-Television News Directors’ top honor, the Paul White Award. He has anchored “Face the Nation” since 1991 and wrote a book about it, "Face the Nation: My Favorite Stories from the First 50 Years of the Award-Winning News Broadcast." He is also the author of the much acclaimed "This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You On TV."

Ken Burns
Ken Burns
In his thirty years as a documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns has produced over 20 films, among them some of the most accomplished historical documentaries of our time. He is perhaps best known for his 1990 film “The Civil War”, the highest rated series in the history of Public Television. Other important films include “Baseball”, an 18-hour documentary on the history of America’s national pastime; “Jazz”, a ten-part film that explores the roots and evolution of this quintessentially American art form; and most recently, the seven-part documentary about World War II, “The War”, which uses the personal accounts of men and women from around the United States to explore the human dimension of one of the most momentous events in recent world history.

Ken Burns’ films have won dozens of major awards, including seven Emmys, two duPont-Columbia Awards, and three Peabodies. In 2002, “Real Screen Magazine” named him one of the two most influential filmmakers of all time.

Tim Russert
Tim Russert
Tim Russert joined NBC News in 1984; the beginning of a 24 year run that brought him national acclaim and the admiration of his colleagues at NBC and elsewhere. It also gave American television viewers a tenacious interviewer famous for confronting the mighty with statements they once made and might now regret.  From 1991 until his death this in June of 2008 he moderated “Meet the Press”, America’s most-watched Sunday morning interview program. Surviving a Tim Russert interrogation was considered an essential challenge for many an aspiring national politician, what Newsweek correspondent Howard Fineman coined “the Tim Russet test.”

Russert also anchored a weekly interview show on CNBC, “The Tim Russert Show”, and served as Senior Vice-President and Washington Bureau Chief of NBC News. Russert authored two best-selling books—“Big Russ and Me” (2004) and “Wisdom of Our Fathers” (2006), and received numerous honors over the course of his career.

In addition to the Lifetime Achievement Award, Emmy® Awards to be given out that evening, there be will be Emmy® Awards presented in 33 categories  including Breaking News, Investigative Reporting, Outstanding Interview, and Best Documentary, among others.

Sponsors for the 29th Annual News & Documentary Emmy® Awards include Grass Valley, a Thomson company, and Television Week.