The Women's
Media Center is proud to announce that our 2016
Women’s Media Awards will this year be hosted for
the first time by Jane
Fonda, the two-time Academy Award-winning star of
Netflix's “Grace and Frankie.” Gayle
King, co-anchor of “CBS This Morning” and three-time
Emmy winner, will give the opening remarks at the event.
The announcement was made by Jane
Fonda, Robin
Morgan, and Gloria
Steinem, co-founders
of the Women’s Media Center. The
celebration will be held on
September 29, 2016, at Capitale in New York City.
The Women’s
Media Awards recognize
and honor game-changers for women in media. By deciding
who gets to talk, what creates the debate, who writes,
and what is important enough to be visible, the media
shapes our understanding of who we are and what we can
be. The Women’s Media Awards shine a light on this
important issue.
“I am so delighted that Jane
Fonda, my friend and sister co-founder of the Women's
Media Center, is hosting our gala,” says WMC Co-Founder Robin
Morgan. “Jane is a brilliant artist who continues to
illumine new, challenging roles with her deep
understanding of humanity. She's also a longtime
activist, contributing to and speaking out for
progressive causes, especially women's rights and
empowerment. Gloria and I truly could not have founded
the Women's Media Center without her energy, vision,
support, humor, star power, and plain hard work.”
“I am very honored to host
this year's Women's Media Awards,” says Women's Media
Center Co-Founder Jane
Fonda. “I am so proud of how, in the eleven years
since the Women's Media Center was founded, this
organization has served as a powerful advocate for
gender equality in the media. When only a tiny
percentage of the top-level positions in media are held
by women, it is crucial that we draw attention to the
amazing work being done by women in all areas of media,
that we provide a home base for training women to take
the next big step, and that we highlight the huge need
for further progress.”
“It is my great
pleasure that this year the mighty Gayle King will be
providing the opening remarks for our Women's Media
Awards,” says Women's Media Center Co-Founder Gloria
Steinem. “In her rich journalistic career and while
anchoring one of America's key national news shows,
Gayle has been a leader and an exponent of the best in
integrity, intelligence, and empathy. A past co-chair of
the Women's Media Awards, she is one of our greatest
examples of a woman shining bright at the height of the
media world.”
Jane Fonda was
born in New York City in 1937, the daughter of Henry
Fonda and Frances Seymour Fonda. She attended the Emma
Willard School in Troy, New York, and Vassar College. In
her early twenties, Fonda studied with renowned acting
coach Lee Strasberg and became a member of the Actors
Studio in New York. Fonda is a two-time Academy Award®
winner (Best Actress in 1971 for “Klute” and in 1978 for
“Coming Home”), a
three-time Golden Globe® winner, and was the 2014
recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award. Along with
starring roles in dozens of highly acclaimed
productions, Fonda also took on responsibilities as a
film and television producer. Her credits include
“Coming Home,” “The China Syndrome,” “Nine to Five,”
“Rollover,” “On Golden Pond,” “The Morning After,” and
“The Dollmaker.”
In 2007 Fonda received an
Honorary Palme d’Or from the Cannes Film Festival, one
of only three people ever to be granted the honor until
then. In 2009, she received a Tony Award nomination for
her role in Moisés Kaufman’s “33 Variations” on
Broadway. In 2011, Fonda appeared in “Et Si On Vivait
Tous Ensemble,” a French comedy, followed by “Peace,
Love & Misunderstanding,” co-starring Catherine Keener.
She appeared as Nancy Reagan in “Lee Daniels’s The
Butler” in 2013, and with Olivia Wilde and Sam Rockwell
in “Better Living Through Chemistry.” In
2014, she starred in director Shawn Levy’s “This
is Where I Leave You,” with Tina Fey and Jason Bateman.
For three seasons, Fonda appeared as media mogul Leona
Lansing in an Emmy®-nominated performance in Aaron
Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” on HBO. Most recently, she
appeared in “Youth,” written and directed by Paolo
Sorrentino (director and co-writer of Italy's Academy
Award® winning Best Foreign Language Film “The Great
Beauty”). She received a Golden Globe nomination for her
performance. Fonda
also stars in Netflix’s hit series, “Grace and Frankie”
which premiered its second season in May 2016.
Fonda revolutionized the
fitness industry with the release of “Jane Fonda’s
Workout” in 1982. She followed with the production of 23
home exercise videos, 13 audio recordings, and seven
bestselling books—selling 17 million copies altogether.
The original “Jane Fonda’s Workout” video remains the
top grossing home video of all time.
Gayle King has
been a co-host of “CBS This Morning” since 2011. She is
also editor-at-large of the award-winning O,
the Oprah Magazine. King
previously hosted "The Gayle King Show," a live, weekday
television interview program on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey
Network. The program, which featured a discussion of a
broad variety of topics that include politics and
cultural developments, was also broadcast on XM
Satellite Radio, where it premiered in 2006. Before
moving into print and radio, King worked for 18 years
(1982-2000) as a television news anchor for CBS
affiliate WFSB-TV in Hartford, Connecticut, during which
period she also hosted her own syndicated daytime
program. Prior to joining WFSB, King worked at several
other television stations, including WDAF-TV in Kansas
City (1978-1981), WJZ-TV in Baltimore (1976), and WTOP-TV
in Washington, D.C. (1975).
King has received numerous
awards for her extensive work as a journalist. In
addition to three Emmys®, she was honored in 2008 with
the American Women in Radio & Television Gracie Award
for Outstanding Radio Talk Show and in 2010 with both
the Individual Achievement Award for
Host-Entertainment/Information and the New York Women in
Communications' Matrix Award recipient.
King spent several years of her childhood in Ankara,
Turkey, before returning with her family to the United
States. She graduated from the University of Maryland in
1976 with a degree in psychology. The mother of a
daughter, Kirby, and a son, Will, she currently resides
in New York City.
The Women’s Media
Center
The Women’s Media Center,
co-founded by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria
Steinem, works to make women visible and powerful in
media. The Women’s Media Center trains women leaders to
be in the media; promotes women experts to the media
through WMC
SheSource;
conducts groundbreaking research and reporting on media
inclusion and accuracy; features women’s voices and
stories on our radio broadcast and podcast, “Women’s
Media Center Live with Robin Morgan” and
through WMC
Features, WMC
Fbomb, WMC
Speech Project and WMC
Women Under Siege.
“The Women’s Media Awards
were created to honor champions for women who use their
media platforms to tell the stories, facts, and
solutions crucial to all viewers, and to advance
opportunities for women in media,” says Julie
Burton, president of the Women’s Media Center.
“Because media tells our stories and influences the role
of women in every part of society, we are proud to honor
these amazing women who set the standard for what media
should look like when it gives voice to the female half
of the country.”
To buy tickets
or for more information about the 2016 Women’s Media
Awards and the ongoing work of the Women’s Media Center,
go to: www.womensmediacenter.com.