Gov. Andrew Cuomo to Win Emmy for Use of Television to ‘Inform and Calm People Around the World’

On November 20 2020, “Emmy” trended on Twitter due to tweets asserting that New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo was the unlikely recipient of an Emmy award:

NOT A JOKE: Andrew Cuomo to Receive International Emmy for ‘Masterful Use’ of TV to ‘Calm People’ https://t.co/qkVdTNdGCM

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) November 20, 2020

The Emmy awards are similar to the Academy Awards’ Oscars. Instead of film, Emmys involve achievements in television:

An Emmy Award, or simply Emmy, is an American award that recognizes excellence in the television industry. It is presented at numerous annual events held throughout the calendar year, each honoring one of the various sectors of the television industry. The two ceremonies that receive the most media coverage are the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Daytime Emmy Awards, which recognize outstanding work in American primetime and daytime entertainment programming, respectively.

Who is Gov. Andrew Cuomo?

Andrew Cuomo was, as of November 2020, Governor of the State of New York.

Cuomo took office in 2011. Cuomo’s father Mario Cuomo served as governor from 1983 to 1994.

So Gov. Cuomo is Getting an Emmy?

According to the official Emmy Awards Twitter timeline, yes.

On November 20 2020, @iemmys tweeted:

Gov Andrew M Cuomo of NY will receive the International Emmy Founders Award in recognition of his leadership during the Covid19 pandemic & his masterful use of TV to inform & calm people around the world. The Emmy will be presented to @NYGovCuomo on Nov 23 https://t.co/dwKIImwYNV pic.twitter.com/1mKkmg6FKW

— International Emmy Awards (@iemmys) November 20, 2020

In that tweet, the International Emmy Awards stated that Cuomo had indeed been chosen to receive an International Emmy Founders Award in 2020, due to his “masterful use of TV to inform & calm people around the world.” @iemmys linked to a November 20 2020 press release, which began:

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo of New York will receive this year’s International Emmy® Founders Award, in recognition of his leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world. The Emmy® will be presented to Governor Cuomo, also a New York Times best-selling author, during the Academy’s live, International Emmy® Awards show streaming at 11 AM ET, on the Academy’s website www.iemmys.tv, on November 23 [2020].

[…]

The Founder’s Award is presented to an individual or organization who “crosses cultural boundaries to touch our common humanity”. Prior recipients include Vice President Al Gore, Oprah Winfrey, and Steven Spielberg.

International Academy President & CEO Bruce L. Paisner was quoted as saying:

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 … 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.

In the press release, the Emmys explained that Cuomo provided 111 briefings during crises in 2020, beginning on March 2 2020. Those briefings served “to inform and educate New Yorkers and the public at large,” and the organization said:

That 12-minute introduction [on March 2 2020], part of a 34-minute session with other state leaders, was the first of 111 consecutive daily briefings for New Yorkers and the wider world about the grim progress of the worst pandemic to hit the United States in a century. The briefings were carried live by New York’s local TV stations, nationally on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other news outlets in the U.S. and around the world. The last “daily” briefing was held on June 19, 2020. These daily communications have drawn a total of 59 million viewers.

The International Emmy Founders Award is bestowed annually “to individuals whose creative accomplishments have contributed in some way to the quality of global television production.”

Summary

“Emmy” became a trending topic on November 20 2020 on news that New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo was chosen as the 2020 recipient of the International Emmy Founders Award. That information was confirmed by the official Twitter account of the Emmy awards.