Oakwood Friends School alumnus Juan Williams was honored as the Television Broadcast Journalist of the Year during the second annual Multicultural Media Correspondents Dinner in Washington D.C. on May 25.
Williams is currently a co-host on Fox News Channel’s “The Five” as well as a regular contributor and political analyst for “Fox News Sunday” and “Special Report with Bret Baier.”
“I’m pretty wowed by it,” Williams said in an interview with Ronica Cleary of Fox 5 DC (below) ahead of accepting the honor. “A very tumultuous year in some ways given all the politics that happened and to go through that history-making cycle and then come out and be acknowledged by my peers as the Broadcast Journalist of the Year is pretty fantastic.”
Williams was born in Colon, Panama, and attended public school in Brooklyn before arriving at Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie (which he visited as a guest lecturer earlier this month), where he graduated from in 1972. After graduation, Williams went on to attend Harvard, and build a career as a journalist that includes stints at The Washington Post, National Public Radio, and Fox News.
“To be honored tonight at this Multicultural Media [Correspondents] Dinner, it speaks to me in a way that no other honor, no other dinner, no other group could do because I see myself as one of you and you are my peers and I seek to impress you every time I’m on the air,” Williams said in his acceptance speech. “I want you to feel there’s somebody there whose not only reasonable but presents and represents me in American media in a way that can make me proud, so thank you.”
