Good evening. We’re gathered here tonight to honor two outstanding leaders, Glenn Britt and Sumner Redstone, about whom, and from whom, you’ll be hearing shortly. I’d like to add my own congratulations to both of these gentlemen. They have added greatly to the industry we love, and they honor us by being here tonight.

But I also want to call your attention to something else that’s happening today. This is the first night of the first day of National Freedom of Speech Week, 2006. As many of you know, NFSW, as we call it, was created by The Media Institute, and launched just last year in company with the NAB Education Foundation. Last year we had six partnering organizations. This year we have 26 and counting, and it’s my hope that next year we’ll have 126.

Created as a non-political celebration of all forms of speech -- artistic, political, commercial -- and of all classes of speakers, from the professional media, to citizen journalists, to individual expression of all kinds -- National Freedom of Speech Week is an attempt to rally large and diverse constituencies around the notion of the inviolability of the Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

We think this is important because at a time when this country is badly divided politically, there’s a growing threat that these divisions will become manifest even in our national policies vis-à-vis freedom of speech and of the press. And this we just can’t abide. Because if freedom of speech becomes nothing more than a political football, it will not survive in any meaningful form.

As with all national commemorative events, a key to NFSW’s growth will be media coverage, whether through news and feature articles, or the carriage of public service announcements. Happy to report, in the case of the latter, both the NAB and Clear Channel Communications have produced PSAs for radio and TV, while AOL and Google are promoting NFSW online. More than this are the myriad activities underway this week by those Partnering Organizations listed in tonight’s dinner program. These people "get it," and it’s my hope and belief that in time everybody will.

In closing, let me thank you for your help with this important work, and once again my sincerest congratulations to tonight’s awardees.