ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Poynter Institute, a global leader in journalism, will honor award-winning journalist, bestselling author and longtime television news anchor and correspondent Scott Pelley with the 2026 Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism at the Bowtie Ball in November.
Pelley’s career has spanned five decades, renowned for incisive reporting, thoughtful interviews and an unwavering commitment to journalistic excellence. Beginning his career as a teenage copy boy at a local Texas newspaper, he rose to become one of the nation’s most respected broadcast journalists, covering the White House and wars, anchoring the “CBS Evening News” and becoming a senior correspondent on the network’s elite show “60 Minutes.” He has won dozens of journalism’s highest honors, including George Foster Peabody, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University and Emmy awards.
“Scott Pelley embodies qualities that set great journalists apart: courage, craft and candor,” said Poynter President Neil Brown. “Poynter’s mission is to promote these fundamentals of independent journalism and so we honor and celebrate Scott for a career reporting and telling stories that are the hallmark of a free press.”
Pelley will receive the medal at the Bowtie Ball, Poynter’s annual fundraising gala on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026, at the JW Marriott Tampa Water Street in Tampa, Florida. This signature gala showcases Poynter’s work and celebrates journalism excellence, press freedom and the importance of local news.
“I’m enormously honored to be recognized by one of the world’s leading advocates for a free press and high quality journalism,” Pelley said. “I accept this award on behalf of hundreds of people at CBS News who helped build my career. We owe our gratitude to Poynter for leading the way through challenging times.”
Pelley joined CBS News in 1989 and spent more than three decades covering many of the defining events of modern history. His reporting has taken him from the Gulf War and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Sudan and Ukraine. As chief White House correspondent, he covered the Bill Clinton administration, and he has interviewed every U.S. president from George H.W. Bush through Joe Biden.
Pelley’s distinguished work as a CBS News correspondent led to a role with the “60 Minutes” franchise, where he first joined “60 Minutes II” as a correspondent in 1999 before becoming a correspondent for the flagship “60 Minutes” broadcast in 2004. Over the next two decades, he established himself as one of the program’s most accomplished investigative journalists.
From 2011 to 2017, Pelley also served as anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News,” overseeing the broadcast during its longest sustained audience growth since the time of Walter Cronkite. Beyond television journalism, Pelley is the bestselling author of “Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter’s Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times.”
Most recently, Pelley publicly defended the editorial independence of “60 Minutes” in a dispute with the current leadership of CBS News over the direction of the vaunted broadcast magazine. He was fired for his remarks.
During the 2026-27 academic year, Pelley will serve as a Journalist in Residence at Columbia Journalism School, mentoring students through lectures, workshops and special events.
Poynter presents its lifetime achievement medal annually to an accomplished journalist who has made a significant impact on the profession. Pelley will join an esteemed roster of Poynter Medal recipients:
Those interested in purchasing a table and sponsoring this year’s Bowtie Ball can contact Wendy Wallace at wwallace@poynter.org or sponsorships@poynter.org or 727-337-7446.
Tickets for the general public tickets will go on sale in September on the Poynter site.
The Bowtie Ball is supported by the Bowtie Ball Steering Committee: Chair, Marcy Hennecke, Lari Johnson and Brian Tierney.
Media Contact:
Jennifer Orsi
Vice President, Publishing and Local News Initiatives
jorsi@poynter.org
About the Poynter Institute:
The Poynter Institute is a global nonprofit working to address society’s most pressing issues by teaching journalists and journalism, covering the media and the complexities facing the industry, convening and community building, improving the capacity and sustainability of news organizations and fostering trust and reliability of information. The Institute is the gold standard in journalistic excellence and dedicated to the preservation and advancement of press freedom in democracies worldwide. Through Poynter, journalists, newsrooms, businesses, big tech corporations and citizens convene to find solutions that promote trust and transparency in news and stoke meaningful public discourse. The world’s top journalists and emerging media leaders rely on the Institute to learn new skills, adopt best practices, better serve audiences, scale operations and improve the quality of the universally shared information ecosystem.
The Newmark Ethics Center, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), MediaWise and PolitiFact are all members of the Poynter organization.
Support for Poynter and our entities upholds the integrity of the free press and the U.S. First Amendment and builds public confidence in journalism and media — an essential for healthy democracies. Learn more at poynter.org.
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