Cuomo Is Getting an Emmy. No, the Other One

And the Emmy award goes to ... New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced Friday that it was giving Cuomo an international Emmy for his "masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world" during the pandemic, the Hill reports. His 111 daily briefings "worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure," said the organization's president & CEO Bruce L. Paisner. "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 golden statuette headed for Cuomo's shelf—known as an International Emmy Founders Award—is given to someone who "crosses cultural boundaries to touch our common humanity," per the academy. In response, the governor called it "flattering" and said he "accepted on behalf of the people of the state, and I think it's flattering to the people of the state." Cuomo recently admitted that not all his COVID-19 policies were ideal—and critics pounced on his mandate that nursing homes readmit patients who tested positive—but he defended his approach overall, per NPR. "There are facts," he said. "New York State had the highest infection rate in the United States of America. Today we have one of the lowest infection rates in the United States of America." (More Andrew Cuomo stories.)