ANDREW Cuomo will receive an Emmy for the “leadership” he displayed during more than a hundred daily coronavirus briefings from Albany, which have been praised as “masterful television.”
The New York Governor will be presented the 2020 International Emmy Founders Award during a live-streamed show on November 23, the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences said on Friday.
The academy praised Cuomo’s “masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world.”
International Academy President and CEO Bruce Paisner said the governor’s decisive action made his state “a symbol of the determination to fight back.”
“The governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure,” he said.
“People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back.”
The Founder’s Award is presented to an individual or organization that “crosses cultural boundaries to touch our common humanity.”
Cuomo conducted the first of 111 consecutive daily briefings on March 2 from Albany to inform New Yorkers and the American public about the threat of what would soon become a massive public health crisis.
His final briefing aired on June 19, and the daily communications reached 59 million viewers, according to WABC.
Despite mishandling the outbreak at state nursing homes, Cuomo’s Covid response has landed him a $25,000 raise even as New York faces a severe budget deficit.
The pay bump from $225,000 to $250,000 set to take effect on January 1, 2021 will make him the highest-paid governor in the country.
But Cuomo told reporters on Wednesday that neither he nor members of his cabinet will take the raise, given the states economic woes.
The governor is raking in additional cash from sales of his book American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic, which hit stores last month.
Cuomo’s book was panned by some critics as a “deranged victory lap” written in “the prose of a sociopath.”
In a review for the Washington Examiner, reporter Tiana Lowe also dubbed the book as a way for Cuomo to “crank out some drivel for personal profit while dealing with no real end in sight for the coronavirus.”
The Democrat’s book delivers a retelling of his efforts to contain the virus as it ravaged his state in spring.
In it, Cuomo describes trying to placate President Donald Trump in order to get needed hospital beds, ventilators and other supplies for his state.
Cuomo also addresses a frequent criticism of his leadership style: that he is overly controlling.
“You show me a person who is not controlling, and I’ll show you a person who is probably not highly successful,” he wrote.
As for his mistakes, Cuomo concedes only a few. Among them, he said, was that he waited too long to mandate that New Yorkers wear masks.