ExecutiveBiographies

Av Westin, counsel to AMG’s crisis management group, is a longtime ABC News and CBS News producer and executive.  He has served as the Executive Director of The Foundation of the  National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences since 2002, and as Co-Chairman of the Awards Committee, News & Documentary.

Through the Foundation, he created and oversees National Student Television, a project that utilizes the facilities of the nineteen National Academy chapters nationwide to expose high school students to the tenets of good broadcast journalism.  Recognized by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the program offers teaching tools, including If It Bleeds, It Leads and Other Lessons in Broadcast Journalism, developed from Westin’s book, Best Practices for Television Journalists.  Since June 2003, the enterprise has awarded the National Student Television Awards for Excellence to high school students around the United States.

In his role as co-chair of the Awards Committee, News & Documentary, Mr. Westin was instrumental in the National Television Academy’s creation of the new Emmy Award for content created for broadband and mobile devices, such as iPods, cell phones, and the Internet.  The new Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Content for Non-Traditional Delivery Platforms was first awarded in 2006, in all six of the National Academy’s areas of recognition: Daytime (entertainment), Sports, News & Documentary, Technology & Engineering, Community & Public Service, and Business &  Financial Reporting. 

Av Westin began his career as a broadcast journalist at CBS News more than five decades ago while he was still in college.  He spent twenty years at CBS News as a reporter, editor, and producer-director of news programs, including CBS Reports and Eyewitness to History. His mentors were Fred Friendly, Charles Collingwood, Eric Sevareid, and Robert Trout.  

After moving to Public Broadcasting for two years, he then joined ABC News where he spent a total of twenty-one years.  There, he was executive producer of the ABC Evening News and World News Tonight.  He created the ABC News Close-up documentary series and as Vice President for Program Development, he was widely credited for, among other things, putting 20/20 on its path to success.  Upon leaving ABC, he was recruited to join Time Warner to convert the assets of the Time, Inc. magazines into television.

He is the author of four books: National Citizenship Test (Bantam Books), Heroes and Heroin (Bantam Books), Newswatch: How TV Decides the News (Simon & Schuster), and Best Practices for Television Journalists (The Freedom Forum).  He also authored “The Color of Ratings,” for Brill’s Content and “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” for Nieman Reports.

Mr. Westin has been a visiting professor of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, Northwestern University, and Arizona State University, as well as a guest lecturer at Fordham University, New York University, Emerson College, and Columbia College in Chicago.  He also serves on the board of CUNY-TV.

An award-winning producer, Av Westin has won six Emmy Awards, three Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Awards, two George Polk Awards, four Peabody Awards, and the Albert Lasker Medical Journalism Award.