September 29, 2023
On Sept. 20, the co-authors of Battlefield Cyber: How China and Russia Are Undermining Our Democracy and National Security discussed China’s cyber and espionage attacks against the U.S. government and military..
The Overseas Press Club of America elected seven new governors to its board at the club’s annual meeting tonight. Members also voted to re-elect five journalists or media professionals who have served on the board for the past two years...
The International Press Institute (IPI) said in a statement that since Sept. 1, the organization has been battling "a targeted and sustained cyberattack" that seems to be retaliation for advocacy work on behalf of independent media in Hungary, amid a spate of similar attacks since this summer...
We, the undersigned journalists, press freedom organizations, and unions, write this statement to denounce the war crimes committed by the Russian Federation against journalists in Ukraine and to call for immediate action to hold the perpetrators accountable...
Ana Zellhuber, a psychoanalyst and Emergency Psychology specialist based in Mexico City, for the second time this year held a psychological training session for the OPC, this time with a focus on particular challenges facing women, nonbinary journalists and their allies...
The OPC recently received a letter of thanks from a man who used the OPC's digital archives to research his own family background. We hope you enjoy reading his account and find the story as moving as we have. It is a testament to the importance of the OPC's digital archives as a tool for researchers as well as a chronicle of club history...
The CFWIJ has published its first quarterly report documenting press freedom violations against women and LGBTQI journalists.
International correspondents gathered in New York City for the Overseas Press Club of America’s 84th annual awards dinner on April 27 to celebrate and honor brave journalists whose reporting brought to light stories of conflict, controversy, and resilience from around the world this past year...
The OPC's 84th Anniversary Awards Dinner featured a keynote speech from Alessandra Galloni, editor-in-chief for Reuters, presentation of the President's Award to Christiane Amanpour, CNN's chief international correspondent, lighting of the Press Freedom Candle by Oksana Markarova, the Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States, remarks about Evan Gershkovich from Almar Latour, the chief executive officer of Dow Jones and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, and acceptance speeches from recipients receiving this year's 22 awards for exceptional international journalism...
Simpa Sampson, a freelance videographer who was part of the Bloomberg team that received a Citation for Excellence in the Morton Frank category this year, did not set out to specialize in covering conflict, but career and opportunity nudged him in that direction...
On World Press Freedom Day, the Overseas Press Club of America renews its call for the release of journalists around the world who have been unfairly detained, imprisoned and sentenced to incarceration simply for doing their jobs as journalists and exposing information that governments would prefer to keep secret...
Members of the International Association of Press Clubs (IAPC) – representatives of dozens of press clubs from around the world – presented the IAPC Freedom of Speech Award 2023 to Andrzej Poczobut and Mortaza Behboudi, two journalists imprisoned by authoritarian regimes...
84th Annual Overseas Press Club Awards Honors the Finest International Reporting in 22 Categories; The New York Times Leads Winners for the Fifth Straight Year; CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Receives OPC President’s Award..
The Overseas Press Club of America strongly condemns and expresses its deep concern over the press freedom implications of the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in Russia for alleged espionage...
Mike Chinoy, the CNN correspondent who has dedicated 25 years to covering China, including the brutal crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, defended the American and Western media’s coverage of China despite the Chinese government’s rhetoric that the media is seeking to foment “color revolutions” and topple the Chinese Communist Party...
When Washington Post staff photographer Salwan Georges fled Iraq with his family in 1998 at the age of 8, he did not expect he would be away from those he left behind for more than two decades, and did not expect conditions to be worse, in many ways, than they were before the war...
Blocked roads, stopped trains and rising hostility toward journalists have been among the biggest challenges for correspondents covering unrest in Peru in recent months, panelists said during an OPC discussion on March 9...
OPC Foundation President William J. Holstein opened this year’s scholarship awards celebration on May 1, the first to be held in person since February 2020, by commending the foundation’s continued support for aspiring international journalists through the challenges of the pandemic...
Ana Zellhuber, a psychoanalyst and Emergency Psychology specialist based in Mexico City, warned journalists during a program on March 2 that while it’s very easy to avoid taking care of your mental and emotional health, the cost of doing so is very high...
Dear Ministers Khan and Maleque - We, the undersigned press freedom and human rights groups, write to seek your leadership in ensuring an immediate end to the harassment of Bangladeshi journalist and human rights defender Rozina Islam...
A common plea for international media emerged from three Ukrainian journalists during an OPC program on Feb. 22: please don’t forget this war. The program, part of the club’s “In the Thick of It” series, are among last year’s 18 recipients of OPC grants of $2,000 each to Ukrainian journalists struggling to continue their work under dire conditions...
On Feb. 15, the OPC hosted a program with Anand Gopal, a four-time OPC Award winner and a club member who is currently a writer for The New Yorker magazine, in conversation with his former editor Christopher Cox, as the two revealed insights about their process of working together, the elements of a strong pitch, safety concerns and other reporting issues...
Filmmaker Michelle Shephard discussed thorny ethical quandaries following a screening of 'The Perfect Story' hosted by the OPC in Toronto on Feb. 2...
On Jan. 26, while Haiti was still reeling from the killing of six police officers the day before, the OPC hosted its inaugural "In the Tick of It" program with reporters who have been covering turmoil in Haiti over the past year...
On Jan. 12, the OPC hosted a discussion with Marcus Yam, a roving Los Angeles Times foreign correspondent and staff photographer...
Bhat Burhan, a Kashmiri multimedia journalist now based in New Delhi, grew up in a region steeped in decades of armed conflict. Inspired by the dedication of local journalists covering the conflicts in the face of government crackdowns, he saw a need for reporting in Kashmir by Kashmiris.
Three Afghan journalists working outside the country before or during the Taliban takeover last year told an OPC audience on Dec. 13 that they are still fighting to tell stories of hope and despair about Afghanistan despite flagging interest from international media...
There are at least two reasons OPC member Jill Langlois seemed bound for a life in journalism from a very early age...
For New York Times reporters Muyi Xiao and Paul Mozur, an updated version of the old journalists’ creed “follow the money” is to “follow the data.” Particularly when covering a country like China where on-the-ground coverage is risky and difficult, the two said during an OPC program on Nov. 30, reporters must rely on data and other digital sources accessible from outside territorial borders...
The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) announced today that it has begun distributing 18 grants of $2,000 each to journalists who are struggling to continue their essential work under dire conditions in Ukraine. Sony Electronics Inc. kickstarted the fund with a $25,000 donation. OPC members and friends also contributed...
When Elisabetta Zavoli, an OPC member, grant recipient and documentary photographer born in Italy, embarked on her investigative journey, it was not amid the bustle of busy newsrooms or the rush of reporting in the field, it was in muted chemistry laboratories and photography darkrooms...
The Overseas Press Club of America on Tuesday condemned the violent treatment of several Western journalists covering anti-lockdown protests in Shanghai. The group has long supported the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China and others protesting the expulsion of foreign journalists and harassment campaigns that have led at least one family, that of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) correspondent John Sudworth, to flee the country...
Like many other professions, journalists face trauma during the course of their work. Their jobs often entail witnessing and processing the human costs of war, natural disasters or other humanitarian crises while on assignment...
Christopher Roush, veteran business journalist, author, and dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University, said during an OPC book night on Oct. 11 that the decline of local business news coverage across the U.S. has left consumers, small businesses owners and employees starved for reliable sources of information they need to make key decisions such as when to buy a house or where to expand a business...
News organizations, journalism schools, safety trainers and non-profits around the world are coming with new ideas for how to help journalists prepare to cover difficult stories and then recover emotionally and mentally afterward. But those efforts are still in the early stages and suffer from a relative lack of coordination. Those were the takeaways from a meeting of more than 100 journalists and non-profit representatives organized by the A Culture of Safety (ACOS) Alliance in New York Oct. 3 to 5...
OPC Vice President Azmat Khan spent five years gathering string for an award-winning investigation that exposed the full scale of civilian tolls from U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. But she told guests at Columbia University on Sept. 13 that conviction, strategy and a well-researched pitch would help students find publishers for any good story idea...
William Rukeyser, who founded Money magazine and served as managing editor of Fortune, died Aug. 16 in Knoxville, Tennessee, at the age of 83. The cause was lung cancer, his wife of 58 years, Elisabeth, said.
Mainstream media organizations around the world – including America’s most powerful newspapers – are experiencing a surge of coordinated social media attacks against their journalists aimed at discrediting or intimidating them. The attacks, combined with efforts by authoritarian governments to control information flows and paint media organizations as purveyors of “fake news,” are so severe that many editors are worried that the very legitimacy of their organizations is being destroyed. The campaigns are overwhelmingly aimed at female journalists. And the industry has little idea what to do about any of it...
The Overseas Press Club of America, an 83-year-old organization that awards highly coveted prizes devoted to international news coverage for an American audience, elected a new president Tuesday night. Scott Kraft, editor at large for enterprise journalism and special projects at the Los Angeles Times, was elected president of the OPC, as the club is widely known...
In the fall of 2019, I was asked to talk about the OPC’s history to recently elected governors. On the shelves next to my desk were OPC Bulletins dating back to 1945 and Dateline magazines from 1958 to the present. The Bulletins were particularly interesting to me because they were published once a week for decades and gave a detailed description of the club’s programs, parties, and periodic controversies...
The Overseas Press Club of America (OPC) is pleased to announce that it will award a limited number of grants in cash or photographic/video equipment to Ukraine journalists working in any medium whose livelihood or ability to pursue his or her profession has been adversely impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"We are a group of news and press advocacy organizations in the United States that have previously worked with or assisted a journalist who has previously provided reporting on Central Romana. We write to notify you about some alarming information we have received over the past year, involving threats made to this reporter and ask for your cooperation with this matter."
Longtime OPC member Jaime FlorCruz visited New York in late July, gathering with a group of club members at the Bryant Park Café to chat about his new book, "The Class of ’77: How My Classmates Changed China", and to toast the efforts of OPC President Paula Dwyer and Executive Director Patricia Kranz in guiding the club through two years of the pandemic. Below is a review of FlorCruz’s book by OPC Past President William J. Holstein, who also attended the gathering...
The OPC Annual Meeting, open to all members in good standing, will be held online on Tuesday, Sept. 6 at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time via Zoom.
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong (FCCCHK) has expressed deep concern about restrictions against some media organizations from covering the inauguration of Chief Executive-designate John Lee and the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China...
On June 23, reporters Sandy Tolan and Euclides Cordero Nuel joined editor and producer Michael Montgomery to discuss behind-the-scenes insights about their project, “The Bitter Work Behind Sugar,” produced for Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting...
Club Quarters has launched a special program for members of the Overseas Press Club of America and their family and friends. They have created a special link for OPC members to book rooms that automatically deducts 10% from the best available rates at that time...
Political cartoonists who are past winners of the OPC’s Best Cartoon awards discussed their creative process, their personal “red lines,” and misconceptions of their work during panel hosted by the OPC on May 19...
During the OPC Foundation’s online scholarship awards celebration on May 11, Bill Holstein, the president of the foundation, hailed the talent and tenacity of this year’s 17 winners, who are facing “enormous challenges” in the early stages of their careers amid uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic...
The Overseas Press Club of America is posting the “We are Kyiv Press Club” emblem in solidarity with our Ukrainian colleagues....
Freelancers and documentary filmmakers wishing to pitch stories to VICE News should use Gelareh Kiazand’s recent series on women in Iran as a “model” for the kind of storytelling producers want to see, panelists said during an OPC discussion on May 4...
The Overseas Press Club of America is honored to join with colleagues at press clubs around the world in recognizing World Press Freedom Day. We would like to take the opportunity to highlight the grave responsibility we have to support journalists who face significant challenges as they go about their work...
The 83rd OPC Awards featured speeches and stories from recipients receiving this year's 22 awards for exceptional international journalism...
Foreign correspondents gathered on April 21 to honor the best in international journalism after a turbulent year that brought the growing threats to democracy – and the profound risks faced by those who cover them – into sharp relief...
Afghanistan’s collapse, rising military violence and the ongoing plight of migrants emerged as the leading storylines among winners of the 83rd Annual Overseas Press Club Awards...
The Overseas Press Club of America announces that it is making grants of $4,000 each to 17 Afghan journalists who have taken refuge in the United States, raising the total it has given to $133,000. The most recent round of grants was made possible through generous support from the Ford Foundation as well as gifts from members...
American journalist and filmmaker Brent Renaud, 50, was killed March 13 in a suburb of Kyiv, Ukraine, while covering the war there. Photographer Juan Diego Arredondo, the 2020 winner of the OPC Foundation’s Harper’s Magazine Scholarship in memory I.F. Stone, also was wounded in what Kyiv police described as an attack by Russian forces...
OPC member Peter Turnley returned from Ukraine earlier this month after photographing the exodus of more than 2.6 million refugees crossing the border into Poland. In an email to the OPC, he said called it the largest exodus in Europe since World War II. In a Facebook post accompanying a group of photos from his journey, Turnely wrote that “I venture to say that no one reading this has ever taken a train ride like the one that thousands of Ukrainians, women and children, made last night from Lviv, Ukraine to the border of Ukraine in Poland, and I hope to God that you never will!”
Friends, colleagues and family members gathered at the Century Association in midtown Manhattan to honor the memory of OPC Past President Richard Stolley on March 4. His daughter, Martha, hosted the event, and three past OPC Presidents attended: Allan Dodds Frank, Michel Serrill and Alexis Gelber, as well as OPC Executive Director Patricia Kranz. Sonya Fry, past OPC executive director, was one of more than a dozen speakers at the memorial. She talked about about his years as longtime member and as president of the club from 2004 to 2006...
Billionaires and power brokers around the world have exploited the pandemic, as with other crises of the past, by securing government bailouts and shifting more wealth into their own hands, according to Peter Goodman, a former OPC governor and longtime business reporter at The New York Times. On March 3, he discussed his new book on the subject, Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World, with OPC President Paula Dwyer serving as moderator...
On Feb. 22, just two days before Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized "special military operations" in Ukraine and began artillery and missile attacks against Kiev and other major cities, three longtime residents of Ukraine discussed the possibility of war and its aftermath...
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) is dismayed that the conditions for independent reporting in China continue to fall short of international standards during the Winter Olympic Games...
On Feb. 16, OPC member Mark Clifford discussed his new book, Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China’s Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere, with moderator OPC Governor Jodi Schneider, political news director at Bloomberg News...
Dear Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha - We, the undersigned 58 press freedom organizations, human rights organizations, and publications write to request your urgent intervention to secure the immediate release of Fahad Shah, editor of the online news portal The Kashmir Walla, from jail, and the withdrawal of all police investigations launched into his journalistic work...
The OPC is saddened to report the passing of OPC Past President John Corporon on Friday, Feb. 4 at the age of 92. “Jack,” as he was called, had been suffering a variety of health ailments for months, in particular arthritis...
For an OPC program on Feb. 3, journalist Nadja Drost and editor Kit Rachlis discussed the process of reporting, strategy, ethics, and building trust with sources to cover the journey of migrants from around the world who traverse the Darien Gap, a swathe of mountainous jungle straddling the Colombia-Panama border...
The OPC stands with other organizations in calling for the immediate release of journalist Fahad Shah, who according to news reports was arrested in the southern Kashmiri city of Pulwama last week. Shah is editor of the news portal The Kashmir Walla...
New Delhi, February 4, 2022 – Authorities in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir must immediately and unconditionally release journalist Fahad Shah, drop any investigation into his work, and cease detaining members of the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday...
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China’s (FCCC) latest working conditions report finds the foreign press corps is facing unprecedented hurdles covering China as a result of the government’s efforts to block and discredit independent reporting...
The OPC announced today that a panel of judges has chosen 15 Afghan journalists who fled their country and who are now in the United States to each receive $2,000 grants to help them adapt to new lives in America...
On Nov. 30, we will begin accepting entries for international coverage in Newspapers, News Services, Digital, Magazines, Radio, Podcasts, Television, Video, Cartoons, Books and Photography...
Relations between the U.S. and Europe are strained and uncertain in the wake of Trump administration disruption and fresh disappointments during President Joseph Biden’s first year in office, a panel of journalists said at an American Library in Paris event on Dec. 8...
The OPC since May has sought to engage in a dialogue with the International Olympic Committee over the rules of the road for journalists covering the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February. We reached out to other media organizations and non-profits, 28 of which signed our letter appealing to the IOC to include press-freedom issues in its negotiations with the Chinese government over the Games. The bad news is that, despite a volley of letters back and forth, we've received no assurances from the IOC that it has or will convey our concerns to the Chinese government, let alone seek the kind of coverage ground rules that journalists traveling to Beijing have every right to expect.
The U.S. departments of State and Defense are failing to follow through on resettlement of tens of thousands of Afghans, including journalists who adopted American-style media practices during the 20-year U.S. presence in Afghanistan, a coalition of organizations coordinated by the Overseas Press Club of America has concluded...
Three months after their evacuation from Kabul, hundreds of Afghan journalists are facing uncertainty about their futures, causing some to consider returning to Afghanistan to be rejoined with their families or resulting in their departures from U.S. military bases before obtaining work permits or housing. Many are trapped in third countries such as North Macedonia, Albania, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Persian Gulf nations, unable to obtain visas to travel to the United States...
The OPC Annual Awards Dinner on Oct. 22 in lower Manhattan was the first in-person ceremony for the group since the coronavirus pandemic began last year...
The 82nd OPC Awards featured speeches and stories from recipients receiving this year's 22 awards for exceptional international journalism...
The OPC's China Working Group joins the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China in expressing disappointment that the government of Xi Jinping and the International Olympic Committee seem determined to hold the Winter Games in complete lock-down mode...
Please support the OPC's efforts to help Afghan journalists who are resettling outside of the country, and spread the word using the hashtag #OPCAfghanAppeal...
I Can Tell It Now: Stories Behind the Great News Events of the Past 25 Years, which the OPC acquired as a result of an anonymous donation, is a collection of 38 compelling stories written by OPC members about events they covered starting in 1939, the same year the club was founded...
The Overseas Press Club of America calls on Israel to present evidence that Hamas operated in a Gaza building destroyed by an Israeli air strike on May 15. The Associated Press, Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye had offices in the tower...
Over the last year, governments around the world have exploited the global pandemic as an excuse to block access to crucial public information and crack down on press freedom. These restrictions are growing even as the spread of disinformation and confusion puts lives at risk and highlights the need for rigorous journalism and fact checking during crises...
OPC Executive Director Patricia Kranz was organizing club archives at the office this week to prepare for digitization, when she ran across a Bulletin folder that contained a club event flier from 1945...
In Off The Record: The Best Stories of Foreign Correspondents, published by the Doubleday & Company in 1952 on behalf of the OPC, we can hear concerns being expressed about the number and quality of foreign correspondents working for American news organizations nearly three-quarters of a century ago...
An anonymous donor has given a collection of about 40 books to the OPC. We will run a series of mini-reviews of these books, starting with Deadline Delayed...
April 20 marks the 10-year anniversary of the deaths of conflict photographers Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, who died from a mortar attack while covering the front lines in Misurata, Libya on that date in 2011. Hetherington was director and producer of the Afghan war documentary Restrepo, and Hondros worked for the Getty Images agency...
On April 16, author and OPC member John Maxwell Hamilton discussed his new book, “Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda.” OPC Past President Allan Dodds Frank moderated the program...
Human rights abuses against civilian populations, corruption in business and government, and the spread of COVID-19 emerged as the leading storylines among the 22 winners of the 82nd Annual Overseas Press Club Awards. America’s oldest association dedicated to international news will honor the journalists at an Oct. 22 event...
Journalism in the digital age has increased demands on reporters, fueled attacks on their integrity, and imploded traditional media business models, leaving news organizations scrambling for sustainable revenue, author and journalist Stephen B. Shepard said during an OPC book night on April 1...
The Overseas Press Club of America condemns the March 31 conviction by a Hong Kong court of Jimmy Lai, founder of Next Digital Media Group, owner of Apple Daily, a pro-democracy publication...
On March 18. the Overseas Press Club hosted a discussion about the state of US-Taiwan relations as China ramps up military and other pressures in an apparent attempt to force Taiwan to submit to the mainland’s control. ..
The Overseas Press Club of America announced today that it has begun distributing 92 micro-grants of $1,000 each to freelance journalists around the world. This round of financial aid, the third the club has initiated in the past year, was made possible by a generous grant from the Ford Foundation.
In her new book, You Don’t Belong Here, Elizabeth Becker profiles the work of three pioneering women journalists who broke barriers of discrimination while covering the Vietnam War: Kate Webb, Catherine Leroy and Frances FitzGerald. On Feb. 12, the OPC hosted a discussion with Becker , moderated by Ann Cooper, Professor Emerita of the Columbia Journalism School.
In recent years, a rising call for women’s rights in Latin America has sparked resistance and violence from men who see the equality movement as a threat to the status quo. On Feb. 9, 2021, the OPC hosted a discussion with Karla Zabludovsky, the Mexico bureau chief and Latin America correspondent for BuzzFeed News who won the 2019 Madeline Dane Ross Award. Her winning entry was a series of articles exploring the ripple effects of the fight for gender equality, including a growing number of femicides and violence against women...
Ahead of the International Day of Solidarity with Belarus on Feb. 7, the undersigned organizations working in the field of freedom of expression and media freedom call for the immediate and unconditional release of all journalists and media workers who continue to be arbitrarily detained...
The Overseas Press Club of America announced today that it has received a substantial grant from the Ford Foundation that will allow it to launch a third round of micro-grants for freelance journalists around the world who have worked for American news organizations and whose careers have been disrupted by COVID-19.
Yulia Slutskaya, the founder and president of Press Club Belarus, Sergei Olshevsky, the club’s director, Alla Sharko, program director and cameraman Pyotr Slutsky were detained on Dec. 22, 2020...
On Jan. 14, the OPC hosted a discussion with reporters whose work was part of a series that won the Roy Rowan Award, including Malachy Brown, senior producer of the visual investigations team, Michael Schwirtz, Dionne Searcey and David Kirkpatrick. Head judge James B. Steele moderated.
On Jan. 12, the OPC hosted a discussion with Malachy Browne, senior producer for the New York Times team that produced “The Russia Tapes: Health Care and Civilians Under Attack in Syria,” which won this year’s Kim Wall Award. The moderator was Louise Roug, executive editor, international at HuffPost, who served as head judge for the award...
On Jan. 8, OPC Past President David A. Andelman joined Deborah Amos, international correspondent for NPR and Treasurer of the OPC, for an online discussion to discuss his new book, "A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen."
The Overseas Press Club of America denounces the detention of five staff members of Press Club Belarus on charges of tax evasion...
In this introductory video, OPC of America President Paula Dwyer describes the club's activities and mission, with testimonials and clips from past events...
The detentions of Yulia Slutskaya, founder and president of Press Club Belarus, Sergei Olshevsky, the club's director, Alla Sharko, club program director, Sergei Yakupov, Media Academy program director for the club, and Pyotr Slutsky, cameraperson, are new examples of the war that was launched by the regime of Alexander Lukashenko on freedom of speech and independent journalism in Belarus. In addition, Press Club Belarus’ headquarters and homes of some of the club’s managers were searched...
On Dec. 17, the OPC hosted a discussion with Azam Ahmed, whose work won a Robert Spiers Benjamin Award for best reporting in any medium on Latin America. His series, “Kill or Be Killed: Latin America’s Homicide Crisis,” included stories about Honduras, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, and Jamaica. The moderator was William Booth, London bureau chief for The Washington Post, who served as head judge...
Two years ago, BuzzFeed journalists Tom Warren and Katie J.M. Baker set out to unravel a vast global system that had supported human right abuses and atrocities against indigenous communities, including rape, torture and murder. Those abuses were funded and bolstered by a pattern of denial and secrecy within the largest conservation organization in the world, the World Wide Fund for Nature, or WWF...
The Overseas Press Club of America strongly condemns the detention of a Bloomberg News employee in Beijing by Chinese authorities...
On Dec. 8, the OPC hosted a discussion with winners of the Joe and Laurie Dine Award, including Angus Berwick, Reuters correspondent for Venezuela, and Brian Ellsworth, senior correspondent for Venezuela. Reuters’ Venezuela Bureau won for their series of articles titled “Maduro’s Venezuela.” The discussion covered some of the sticky ethical and logistical challenges the team faced as they reported on Maduro’s Special Action Force death squads, links with Cuba’s intelligence networks, how the country’s military was reshaped to serve Maduro’s vision, the fate of a Chinese rice project that fanned the flames of corruption, endemic malnutrition and stories of immigrants fleeing the country...
The Overseas Press Club Board of Governors, noting the conclusions of The New York Times's internal review of its “Caliphate” podcast, has rescinded its 2018 Lowell Thomas Award for “Caliphate” to Rukmini Callimachi, Andy Mills, Larissa Anderson and Wendy Dorr...
On Dec. 2, Gregory Warner, Jane Arraf, Michael May and Sana Krasikov of NPR’s Rough Translation podcast participated in an online OPC program to discuss “DIY Mosul,” which won this year’s David A. Andelman and Pamela Title Award for best international TV, video, radio, audio or podcast reporting showing a concern for the human condition. Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times, who served as head judge on the award jury, moderated...
Chris Yeung, chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, told the OPC and Foreign Press Association (FPA) on Nov. 23 that four months after a sweeping security law went into effect in Hong Kong in June, it has become clear that officials plan to carry out its restrictions in a “rigorous, aggressive manner.”
During an online OPC program on Nov. 12, OPC member Jim Laurie described his new memoir as a “coming of age” story for a young journalist navigating the trials of war reporting in Southeast Asia in the 1970s, as dawn broke on the revolution and rise of the Khmer Rouge..
On Nov. 10, 2020, the OPC hosted an online program with Cornelius Ryan Award winner Katherine Eban, whose grim look at the pharmaceutical industry has taken on new and chilling relevance as the world races to find treatments and vaccines to curb the coronavirus pandemic, amid easily gamed FDA inspection systems, lack of transparency in pharmaceutical companies and regulators, rampant data fraud and even less oversight than when the book was published...
The OPC is saddened to learn that longtime OPC member Seymour Topping, a veteran foreign correspondent and editor who cut his teeth during China’s civil war at the end of the 1940s, died on Nov. 8 at the age of 98...
(by OPC member Jim Laurie) It has been a very tough year. Many have died, been sickened, lost their jobs, or locked down as the world fights a global pandemic: a disruption like no other I can remember. For one old reporter, thankfully, it’s been more of an inconvenience. I have been grounded. For the first time in fifty years, I have not spent at least part of the year outside the United States; not travelling in China, Vietnam, Cambodia or other parts of Asia or Europe...
On Oct. 1, the OPC hosted an online discussion with journalist Alex Perry, who wrote a detailed story about the murder of an American missionary on a remote island in the Indian Ocean for Outside magazine, titled “The Last Days of John Allen Chau,” which won this year’s Ed Cunningham Award for best magazine-style, long-form narrative feature in print or digital on an international story. Megan Stack, the head judge for this year’s Cunningham Award, moderated...
On Oct. 28, Nick Kostov and Sean McLain of The Wall Street Journal retraced months of reporting that unraveled events leading to the arrest of Brazilian-born business executive Carlos Ghosn. Their series of articles following the Ghosn saga won this year’s Malcolm Forbes Award for best international business news reporting in newspapers, news services, magazines or digital...
The Overseas Press Club and the Foreign Press Association oppose proposed rule changes by the Department of Homeland Security that would restrict the freedom of foreign journalists to work in the United States, and could invite retaliation by other governments against U.S. journalists overseas...
On Oct. 21, the OPC hosted a webinar with members of the team who won this year's Morton Frank Award, including Rick Young, Emma Schwartz, Laura Sullivan and Fritz Kramer, with Jane Sasseen, executive director of the McGraw Center for Business Journalism, moderated. She served as a judge on the Morton Frank Award jury...
On Oct. 14, 2020, the OPC hosted an online program with Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News, who won the the OPC’s Best Cartoon Award for best print or digital graphic journalism, including cartoons, on international affairs. His list of accolades also includes the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning...
Almost by stealth, Homeland Security is proposing ill-considered changes that will dampen foreign reporting in the U.S. and on the U.N. – while risking provoking foreign governments to retaliate with restrictions on U.S. reporters going abroad. Foreign Reporting of the U.S. and the U.N. is about to be completely transformed with “I” visa changes that threaten the livelihoods and legality of foreign correspondents – and no one is reporting it or protesting...
On Oct. 7, the OPC hosted a webinar with Waad Al-Kateab and Raney Aronson-Rath, the executive producer of FRONTLINE, PBS’ investigative journalism series,about the Peter Jennings Award-winning documentary For Sama. Robert Friedman of Bloomberg News, who served as head judge for the Jennings award jury, moderated...
Sir Harold Evans was a longtime friend of the Overseas Press Club who occasionally took time from his busy schedule to show up at an OPC event...
The Overseas Press Club strongly opposes the new Hong Kong Police policy established Sept. 22 that narrows the definition of “media representatives” and grants law enforcement the power to determine which journalists can report on demonstrations in the city...
On Sept. 17, the OPC hosted an online discussion with the film’s producers, whose work won this year’s Edward R. Murrow Award for best TV, video or documentary interpretation of international affairs with a run time up to 30 minutes...
The OPC is saddened to hear that longtime OPC member, Governor and supporter Jacqueline Albert Simon died on Aug. 10 at the age of 98...
China, at the urging of President Xi Jinping, is pursuing technological goals and investment programs to build a China-centric global model, not to mention its militarization of the South China Sea and its clampdown on Hong Kong, panelists said during the webinar on Aug. 13...
This week’s OPC Press Freedom update looks at Belarus in the wake of mass protests following the controversial Aug. 9 presidential election...
Freelance journalists around the world are suffering financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are stranded at home or abroad, because of travel restrictions and closed borders. Others have seen assignments dry up or have had payment for work underway or already completed reduced or canceled outright...
On July 9, the OPC hosted an online discussion with Hassan and two other members of her team: Joe Hill, associate producer and researcher; and Julia Lindau, producer. The moderator was Terry McCarthy of the American Society of Cinematographers, who served as head judge for the Kaplan Award...
On June 19, the OPC hosted an online discussion via Zoom with journalists and people close to the story who worked on a two-part podcast series about Najm’s disappearance, and family and friends’ long mission to track him down...
On June 10, 2020, the OPC hosted an online discussion via Zoom with this year’s photography award winners, including Dieu Nalio Chery of The Associated Press, winner of the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award for best photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise; Moises Saman of National Geographic, winner of the Olivier Rebbot Award for best photographic news reporting from abroad in any medium; and Rena Effendi of The Wall Street Journal, winner of the Best Feature Photography award for best feature photography on an international theme published in any medium...
On June 3, the OPC hosted a discussion via Zoom with the journalists who worked on the series, including reporter Isabel Coles and photojournalist Rena Effendi. Peter Spiegel, US managing editor of the Financial Times and the head judge for the Bob Considine Award, moderated...
The Overseas Press Club of America denounces a Philippine court’s wrongful conviction of journalist Maria Ressa and her former colleague at the news website Rappler, a verdict that underscores dire threats to press freedom under President Rodrigo Duterte...
OPC Past President Deidre Depke writes about the recipients of the club's $750 freelancer grants. Designed to offset some of the financial hardship created by COVID-19, 27 grants were awarded to freelance writers, photographers, and film and video reporters abroad and in the United States. A committee of OPC governors made the awards, working from nearly 50 applications...
The plight of immigrant populations fleeing violence across several continents and the state of ISIS after the caliphate emerged as the leading storylines among the 22 winners of the 81st Annual Overseas Press Club Awards...
The Overseas Press Club offers photo ID card options for our working press members...
The culture of Safety alliance (ACOS) is expanding its geographic reach and the range of support it is providing to help editors, producers and freelance journalists of all stripes as they seek to cover an increasingly dangerous world...
The ACOS Alliance, the coalition that came together following the murders of James Foley and Steven Sotloff, is working with insurers and stakeholders to facilitate access to affordable insurance for all journalists...
The OPC is pleased to be able to offer OPC press IDs labeled with “PRESS” in Chinese characters. This new option is in addition to IDs that are available with “PRESS” in Arabic script. Both options are available for the larger government-style badges for $40, as well as the credit-card sized press IDs...
I had no idea my new OPC press badges would give me unlimited access to covering one of the most horrific mass shootings of Jewish people in U.S. history. On a rainy October day in Pittsburgh, Pa., I walked quickly to the first of several press conferences that would unveil the somber and tragic acts of Robert Bowers...
Please consider supporting the work of international freelance journalists by donating to the Membership Fund of the Overseas Press Club of America. Accurate, unbiased reporting is more important now than ever. But much of the work is being done by freelancers who have little institutional support from news organization...
In the winter of 2013, I heard a story about U.S.-backed forces burying a child alive in a remote village in Kandahar, Afghanistan. While investigating, I was arrested by forces loyal to the brutal police chief Abdul Raziq, America’s man in Kandahar. I was expelled from Kandahar and barred from ever returning...
