2017 Awardee Profiles

American Horizon Award Recipient

Dave Lougee
President & CEO
TEGNA Inc.

Dave Lougee is President and CEO of TEGNA Inc., one of the most geographically diverse broadcasters in the United States. He also serves on the company’s board of directors.

Prior to becoming CEO, Mr. Lougee spent 10 years as President of TEGNA Media. During that time, the company acquired Belo Corp. and London Broadcasting, nearly doubling its broadcast portfolio. Before joining TEGNA, Mr. Lougee served as Executive Vice President of Media Operations for Belo. He also served as Senior Vice President and President and General Manager of TV and Cable Operations in Seattle/Tacoma.

Mr. Lougee serves as Chairman of the NBC Affiliates Board and is the immediate past joint chairman of the National Association of Broadcasters. He also sits on the boards of directors of BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) and the Broadcasters Foundation of America, and is a past chair of the Television Bureau of Advertising board of directors.

Mr. Lougee received the 2017 Ward L. Quaal Leadership Award from the Broadcasters Foundation of America. In 2015, he was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. He was awarded the First Amendment Leadership Award by RTDNF and the Broadcaster of the Year Award by Broadcasting & Cable magazine in 2014.

Mr. Lougee is a graduate of the University of Colorado and attended the Stanford Executive Program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2004. He and his wife, Danni, reside in Northern Virginia with their son, Nash.

Freedom of Speech Award Recipient

Jeffrey Herbst, Ph.D.
Former President & CEO
The Newseum

Jeffrey Herbst is a scholar, author, First Amendment champion, and immediate past president and CEO of the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Previously, he was President of Colgate University, a liberal arts college in Hamilton, N.Y. Dr. Herbst had also served as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. In this capacity, he was the chief academic officer for a university with 21,000 students on three American campuses and one in Europe. Dr. Herbst started his career as a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, where he taught for 18 years and chaired the Department of Politics.

Dr. Herbst’s long experience as a university executive and professor has given him a special interest in campus speech and the political correctness movement, the attitudes of young persons toward the First Amendment, and the sensibilities of speech on social media.

His most recent book (with Dr. Greg Mills) is How South Africa Works and Must Do Better (2015). He is also the author of States and Power in Africa (2014) and several other books and articles. Dr. Herbst has taught at the University of Zimbabwe, the University of Ghana, Legon, the University of Cape Town, and the University of the Western Cape. In 2004-05, he was a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Dr. Herbst earned his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1983. He earned a Master’s degree from Yale University in 1985 and a doctorate in 1987, also from Yale.