Pioneering CBS News producer Fred W. Friendly, whose career began at the Providence radio station WEAN and who is best known for collaborating with CBS correspondent Edward R. Murrow, was inducted posthumously into the Rhode Island Journalism Hall of Fame on Friday night.

The inductions of Friendly and three others took place during the Rhode Island Press Association’s annual awards dinner at the Crowne Plaza hotel, in Warwick. Inductions into the Hall of Fame, which is housed in Chafee Hall at the University of Rhode Island, are made each year to recognize journalists with Rhode Island connections who made significant contributions during their careers.

The press association described Friendly as “a towering figure in the evolution of news coverage on television.”

Born in New York City, Friendly had been a broadcast producer and journalist at Providence radio station WEAN from 1937 to 1941 before moving on to NBC radio and CBS television. He collaborated with Morrow on the radio series I Can Hear It Now and the TV series See It Now. Their programs examined issues such as McCarthyism, the plight of migrant workers, and tobacco’s link to lung cancer. Friendly became president of CBS News in 1964. He later taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and wrote several books on First Amendment issues. He died in 1998.

The other inductees were:

•Mae Keighley Adams. The press association described her as a “pioneer food writer” who started as a free-lancer with The Narragansett Times and had a 15-year career at The Providence Journal. The association said she was “noted for innovative reporting and writing about food and dining at a time when most newspapers had no food sections.”

•George E. Trafford. The press association said Trafford followed “an unusual career path in journalism,” starting as a Providence Journal copyboy right out of high school and working as a compositor in the composing room for 16 years. When the typesetting machines were phased out, he was offered a chance to be retrained as a reporter. He worked for the next 20 years as a reporter and column writer in The Journal’s West Warwick bureau and retired. Two years later, he joined The North Kingstown Standard-Times, where he still works as a reporter and column writer.

•Marion M. Perkins. The press association said Perkins, who died in 1967, was the first woman sports editor in Rhode Island. She was asked to fill in when the sports editor at the Cranston Herald had to leave because of illness, and she remained in that position for 17 years. The press association said she “persevered in the world of sports writing, then a male bastion, with feature stories on athletes, local and national, including covering the Red Sox on occasion.” She was the first woman member of Words Unlimited, the Rhode Island sports writers organization.

efitzpat@projo.com