Contact:	Fred Knubel	
		Director of Public Information
		212-854-5573,fhk1@columbia.edu		FOR IMMEDIATE USE





Cronkite To Receive Columbia
 Journalism Award
_________________________

Presentation of Graduate School's Highest Honor
Helps Celebrate Students' Graduation


	Walter Cronkite, former anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening
 News, will receive the 1997 Columbia Journalism Award, the highest honor
 given by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
	It will be presented by the school's acting dean, Sandy Padwe, Tuesday,
 May 20, at 7 P.M. ceremonies in the Levien Gymnasium on the Columbia
 campus.  Mr. Cronkite will speak.  The event celebrates the students of the school
 who will be awarded their master's degrees in journalism the following day at 
the University's commencement exercises.
	Mr. Cronkite has been a journalist for more than 60 years, the last 46
 affiliated with CBS News, where he headed the CBS Evening News for almost 19 
years.  He has been a special correspondent since 1981.  When he departed the
 nightly news his integrity and professional skill and his contributions to
 broadcast news and journalism were praised around the world.  Last year his
 autobiography, A Reporter's Life, was published by Knopf.
	The faculty of the Journalism School also presented a special citation to
 The Grand Forks Herald and its publisher, Michael A. Maidenberg, "for
 their heroic service to the people of North Dakota and Minnesota during the 1997
 Red River Flood."

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