Jane Pauley, Alex Gibney Set to Receive Lifetime Achievement Awards at News & Documentary Emmys

Longtime broadcast journalist and author Jane Pauley and documentarian/director Alex Gibney have been tapped to receive lifetime achievement awards at the 45th annual News & Documentary Emmys. The honors were revealed Wednesday by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Pauley, currently the host of “CBS News Sunday Morning,” will receive her award during the news ceremony portion of the awards on Wed., September 25, while Gibney will be honored during the Documentary ceremony on Thursday, Sept. 26. Both ceremonies will take place at New York’s Palladium Times Square, and be streamed on NATAS’ viewing app.

Adam Sharp, President and CEO of NATAS, said: “We are honored to pay tribute to these two revered icons of our industry. Jane Pauley and Alex Gibney continue to reach viewers while at the same time opening doors for those coming behind them,” said NATAS president/CEO Adam Sharp in a statement. “This honor is not only about impressive longevity in a competitive space, but also the broad and sweeping impact each has had on the business, their audiences, and the greater community. NATAS is proud to celebrate their enduring dedication to television excellence.”

Pauley has received four Daytime Emmy Awards, five News & Documentary Emmy Awards, a Sports Emmy Award as well as the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Gracie Allen Award from the Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television. She took over “CBS News Sunday Morning” in 2016, having first joined the show in 2014. Pauley was the host of NBC’s “Today” from 1976 to 1989 and was a co-founding anchor of “Dateline NBC.” She also hosted the daytime series “The Jane Pauley Show.” Her books include the 2004 memoir “Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue” and 2014’s “Your Life Calling: Reimagining the Rest of Your Life.”

“I am so grateful for this recognition,” Pauley said. “It is the honor of a lifetime. My career has been a shared experience made possible by partnerships with the best in journalism and collaborations with its most inventive minds. Change and opportunity have been the constants. My career has not been a steady ascent but a winding path leading to my crowning achievement as host of ‘CBS News Sunday Morning.’”

Gibney has previously received the Academy Award, four News & Documentary Emmy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, the Grammy Award, six Peabody Awards and six Writers Guild Awards. He received an Oscar in 2008 for “Taxi to the Dark Side” and was nominated in 2006 for “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.” His HBO doc “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God” won multiple emmys and a Peabody, while his Showtime film “The History of the Eagles” also received an Emmy. Other films include “Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown,” “The Armstrong Lie,” “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks,” the Emmy and Peabody winning “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,” “Sinatra: All or Nothing at All,” “Steve Jobs: The Man in The Machine,” and “The Forever Prisoner.” “Wise Guys,” his two-part series on David Chase, will debut at the Tribeca Film Festival and be available on Max later this year. Gibney is currently in production on the documentary “Musk” about Elon Musk and “Knife,” a inspired by Salman Rushdie’s memoir “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.”

“I am grateful, humbled and deeply honored by this award,” Gibney said. “While it has my name on it, it is also a powerful recognition of the work of my collaborators over the years, including my producers, cinematographers and, most especially, editors. It reminds me of that great two word poem, invented on the spot, at a speech at Harvard, by Muhammed Ali: ‘Me, We.’”

The 45th News & Documentary Emmy® Awards will be streamed live on NATAS’ viewing platform, found on watch.theemmys.tv and via The Emmys apps for iOS, tvOS, Android, FireTV, Roku and more.