wfn.org | UCC - Bob Abernethy to receive special Wilbur Award

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

> Bob Abernethy to receive special Wilbur Award

> Written by Religion Communicators Council
> January 4, 2010
> Bob Abernethy
> Photo PBS

Bob Abernethy, host of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly on PBS is the next
recipient of a special Wilbur Award from the Religion Communicators
Council. Abernethy, a member at Cleveland Park Congregational UCC in
Washington, D.C., is to receive the honor, one of the oldest in
religion communication, April 9 in Chicago during Religion
Communication Congress 2010. The special award recognizes
contributions Abernethy and the program have made to public
discussions of faith topics.

"Since 1997, Bob has promoted intelligent, insightful examinations of
faith issues on American public television," said council president
Douglas F. Cannon. "As executive editor and host of Religion & Ethics
Newsweekly, he has shown that the spiritual side of America is
important and deserves journalistic attention."

Abernethy proposed the program concept to public station WNET in New
York partly in response to widespread criticism that American
television news didn't pay attention to religion, Cannon noted. Over
the past 12 years Religion & Ethics Newsweekly has provided a regular
place on television for fair discussion of religion and spirituality.

The council has presented Wilbur Awards annually since 1949. They
honor excellence by individuals in secular media?print and online
journalism, book publishing, broadcasting, and motion pictures?in
communicating religious issues, values and themes. The award is named
for the late Marvin C. Wilbur, a pioneer in religious public relations
and longtime council leader. Religion & Ethics Newsweekly has earned
Wilbur Awards for outstanding national television coverage of religion
news in 1998, 2002, 2004 and 2005.

From time to time the council Board of Governors confers a special
Wilbur Award. It recognizes a person or organization whose body of
work in secular media makes a substantial and unique contribution to
public discourse on religious faith and values or interfaith dialog
and understanding.

Past recipients of special Wilbur Awards include President and Mrs.
Jimmy Carter; John Dart, former religion editor of the Los Angeles
Times; Martin Marty of The Christian Century; Bill Moyers of Bill
Moyers Journal; Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood; cartoonist
Charles Schulz, creator of Peanuts; and filmmaker Ken Wales.

Founded in 1929, the Religion Communicators Council is the oldest
public relations professional association in the United States. It has
more than 500 members and 13 regional chapters. Members represent
Baha'i, Christian, Hindu, Islamic and Jewish organizations and work in
advertising, print and electronic communication, and public relations.