NJN’s First Public Service Award
To Be Presented to CPB’s Cheryl Halpern
At NJN Gala on Wednesday, July 14 at Drew University

STATEWIDE – Cheryl Halpern, chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), will receive the first Robert E. Littell and Virginia Littell Distinguished Public Service Award at the NJN Foundation Gala on Wednesday, June 14, 2006 at the Simon Forum at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey. The 2006 Gala Celebrating New Jersey’s Best Neighbors is the major annual fundraising event of the NJN Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the state’s television and radio network.

Proceeds from the Gala support NJN’s Uniquely New Jersey award-winning programs that include news and public affairs programming such as NJN News, On the Record, and Reporters Roundtable; and NJN’s diversity programs Another View and Images/Imagenes. Gala proceeds help advance NJN’s growing educational programs for children and adults on-air and in the community and strengthen NJN’s critical role as a communication resource for homeland security.

Halpern is well known in the international broadcast community as an advocate for achieving democratic values through education and respect for diversity. She brings to her position as chair of CPB great passion for public broadcasting which she herself has described as “a haven for the mind and for the spirit.” A Livingston, New Jersey, resident and citizen of the world, Cheryl has served as a member of the Board for International Broadcasting and as a director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors overseeing Voice of America, Radio and TV Marti, Worldnet, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Iraq. As a presidential appointed US delegate to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Conference on Anti-Semitism in 2003, Halpern spoke before the plenary council on children’s programming and textbook development. She supported the development of Sesame Stories, a program produced by the Sesame Workshop for Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian children. In March 2005, she was honored by the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders in New Jersey for "her outstanding career in broadcasting, her civic involvement and advocacy on behalf of women's rights, and for embodying the spirit and accomplishments of women everywhere."