Tuggle honored for lifetime achievement in journalism education

C.A. “Charlie” Tuggle has received the 2011 Edward L. Bliss Award for Distinguished Broadcast Journalism Education.

The award is given annually by the Radio-Television Journalism division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication to an electronic journalism educator who has made a significant and lasting contribution to the field in the areas of teaching, service and scholarship. This year’s award will be given Aug. 11 at the association’s national convention in St. Louis.

Tuggle he has taught at Carolina for 12 years. His students broadcast two live installments of the TV news program “Carolina Week” and one episode of the radio newscast “Carolina Connection” each week. Tuggle is also the co-author of the “Broadcast News Handbook: Writing, Reporting, and Producing in a Converging Media World,” the most widely used broadcast text in the nation.

He spent 16 years as a reporter and producer in local television newsrooms in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Fla. He became a broadcast journalism educator in 1992 as a guest lecturer and seminar leader at the University of Florida and has since taught at the University of Montevallo and Florida International University in addition to UNC. He holds a doctorate from the University of Alabama.

The Bliss award honors the longtime writer, producer and editor for CBS News. Bliss was known for his work with Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. He ended his career as an educator at American University, which now houses the plaques bearing the award winners’ names.