2024 Awardee Profiles

Patrick Butler was President and Chief Executive Officer of America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) from 2011 to 2024, when federal and state funding for public broadcasting reached record levels, and public television stations enhanced their local service in education, public safety, and civic leadership.

As Senior Vice President of The Washington Post Company (1991-2008), he founded and led the Emmy-award winning Newsweek Productions, chaired PCS Action (a coalition of companies pioneering mobile personal communications services), and founded Washington Post Live.

As Washington Vice President of Times Mirror (1985-1991), he was a founder of what is now the Pew Research Center.  Earlier, as an editorial services consultant, his clientele ranged from Henry Kissinger to Cary Grant.

Mr. Butler was special assistant to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R-Tenn.) and advisor to the White House Chief of Staff.  He also served as a speechwriter and associate editor of the White House Editorial Office for President Gerald R. Ford.

Appointed by President Reagan to the National Council on the Humanities, he served as chairman of the public programs committee and secured NEH funding for Ken Burns’s public television series “The Civil War.”

Mr. Butler is Chairman Emeritus of the Maryland Public Television Foundation and SOME (So Others Might Eat) and served as Vice-Chair of the boards of American University and the National Archives Foundation.  He received the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award from America’s Public Television Stations.

Mr. Butler is married to Donna Norton Butler, and they have three daughters and three grandchildren.

Floyd Abrams is Senior Counsel in the litigation practice group of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP in New York City.  He has a national trial and appellate practice and extensive experience in high-visibility matters, often involving First Amendment issues.  He has argued 14 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Mr. Abrams’s clients have included the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case and other matters, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Time, Business Week, Reader’s Digest, and The McGraw-Hill Companies, among many others.

In 2006, Mr. Abrams was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences.  He has received awards from Yale Law School and numerous other academic and professional organizations.

Mr. Abrams has appeared frequently on television, and has published articles and reviews in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Yale Law Journal, and elsewhere.  He has authored three books about the First Amendment, including The Soul of the First Amendment (Yale University Press, 2017).

For 15 years, Mr. Abrams was the William J. Brennan, Jr. Visiting Professor of First Amendment Law at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.  He also has been a Visiting Lecturer at Yale and Columbia law schools.  He is a graduate of Cornell University and received his law degree from Yale Law School.

Mr. Abrams serves on The Media Institute’s First Amendment Advisory Council and currently chairs the Steering Committee of the Institute’s Madison Project.

Richard E. Wiley is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Media Institute.  He also chairs the Board’s Executive Committee.

Mr. Wiley co-founded Wiley Rein LLP, a Washington, D.C., law firm with one of the nation’s largest communications practices, in 1983.  Mr. Wiley served as a Chairman, Commissioner, and General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission from 1970 to 1977, and was recognized as a leading force in the agency’s initial efforts to foster greater competition and less regulation in the media industry.

Since 1985, Mr. Wiley has been regularly recognized as one of the nation’s “100 Most Influential” lawyers by The National Law Journal.  He also has been profiled in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, Globe and Mail, and American Lawyer.

Mr. Wiley was awarded an Emmy by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for leading the development of the nation’s digital television transmission standard.  He has also received awards from numerous industry-related groups including the National Association of Broadcasters, North American Broadcasters Association, Library of American Broadcasting, Broadcasters Foundation of America, Consumer Technology Association, and Broadcasting & Cable magazine.

Mr. Wiley graduated with distinction from Northwestern University (B.S. and J.D.) and holds a Master’s degree in Law (LL.M.) from Georgetown University.  He also holds Honorary Doctor of Law degrees from Catholic and John Marshall law schools.