Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News,” received the 2009 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism at a Phoenix luncheon on Wednesday.

Williams said the Cronkite award is the highest honor he has received in his career.

“I learned all I know about our world from Walter Cronkite,” he said.

Williams said he grew up watching Cronkite on CBS Evening News and has considered him the North Star and the guiding light of his career.

Nearly 1,200 guests attended the award ceremony at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel, where ASU Provost Elizabeth Capaldi presented the 26th annual award.

Speakers at the luncheon included Capaldi, Win Holden, president of the Cronkite Endowment board, Ernest Calderón, president of the Arizona Board of Regents, and Christopher Callahan, dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Callahan said Williams was chosen for the award because of the values he has represented over the course of his career. Accuracy, honesty, fairness and objectivity are what make Williams a luminary in the field, he said.

“It is a thrill and an honor to have Brian with us on this day, in this year,” Callahan said.

It is especially significant that a journalist like Williams received the award this year, he said. In a year when Walter Cronkite, one of the most respected voices in journalism, has died, Williams will carry the torch of the Cronkite standard of journalism, Callahan said.

“I don’t think we could have picked a better recipient,” he said.

Vaughn Hillyard, broadcast journalism freshman, said Williams sent a clear signal that the Cronkite standard of journalism is something to live up to and celebrate.

In today’s journalistic climate there are many different figures within the media sharing slanted viewpoints, but Williams is on television every night of the week presenting objective news in a friendly and believable manner, he said.

“He truly tells the news the way it is,” Hillyard said.

Williams joined NBC in 1993. He had his own show “The News with Brian Williams” from 1996 until 2003, when he took over the position as lead anchor for Tom Brokaw on “NBC Nightly News” in 2004. Nightly News is now the top-rated network for evening news, Capaldi said.

Williams has won many awards including five Emmys, four Edward R. Murrow awards and six honorary doctorates, she said.

“Six doctorates, very nice, not one bachelor degree,” Williams said jokingly.

With 175,000 blogs being created every day and 26 million users on Twitter expected by 2010, one of the major changes facing journalism is an increase the amount of information available, Williams said.

Facts matter less and being wrong does not carry the same stigma it used to, he said, people often find it is easier to voice an opinion than it is to report the facts.

“These days there are entire cable networks that agree with you the moment you wake up in the morning,” Williams said.

Cronkite only broke his vow to never include opinion in his work once in his career, to make an informed decision to speak out against the Vietnam War, Williams said. This is the standard of journalism that needs to persist today, he said.

However, among the near limitless amount of material on the Web, is deep and brilliant work and it’s all there if you know the difference, he said.

“There is journalism and there is everything ending in ‘lol,’” Williams said.

Reach the reporter at rvanvelz@asu.edu.