September 19, 2021
The OPC elected seven new governors to its board at the club’s annual meeting tonight. Members also voted to re-elect six journalists or media professionals who have served on the board for the past two years...
Journalists from news organizations, press clubs, and press freedom organizations around the world are urging the U.S. State Department to help secure safe passage from Afghanistan for journalists at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Afghan service...
The OPC is pleased to announce that it will hold its annual awards dinner on Oct. 22 at Cipriani 25 Broadway in lower Manhattan...
Ahead of the G7 summit on the situation in Afghanistan, we, the undersigned organizations, call on G7 countries to make a clear and explicit commitment to taking journalists and media workers as an urgent and immediate priority, ensure their protection and evacuate them and their families...
J.p. Lawrence, the HL Stevenson winner in 2015, was able to evacuate Kabul on a plane alongside U.S. embassy staff. Read one of the last Afghanistan-based stories he co-wrote for his employer, Stars & Stripes. A military veteran, Lawrence had an OPC Foundation fellowship with The Associated Press in Uganda...
The Overseas Press Club of America is deeply concerned about the safety of journalists still working in Afghanistan, particularly local journalists and freelancers. Please share the resources below with your networks...
The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) today calls for swift and robust action by the European Union and U.S. to defend media freedom in Poland and counter the serious attack on the independence of the country’s largest private television channel, TVN, by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party...
The Overseas Press Club of America strongly condemns a series of cyberattacks and violent threats on Farnaz Fassihi, an Iranian-American journalist who serves on the board of the OPC...
The Overseas Press Club of America supports the National Press Club of New Zealand after a court decided against a journalist in a libel case and forced them to hand over source material used in their coverage...
The following is another installment in a series of reviews by William J. Holstein of a collection of books that were donated anonymously to the OPC in April. Holstein reviews Out of This World: Across the Himalayas to Forbidden Tibet, by Lowell Thomas Jr., Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer, and The Silent War in Tibet: The Unknown Story of the Most Remote and Romantic Nation in its Struggle Against the Modern Might of China. by Lowell Thomas, Jr.
In his memoir about covering the wars in Central America during the 1980s, reporter and photographer Bill Gentile describes how journalists teamed up on dangerous stories...
The deterioration in the treatment of foreign journalists in China, most recently demonstrated in their coverage of flooding, has reached the point that it has triggered a statement of concern from the U.S. Department of State...
The IAPC is alarmed by yet another wave of repression directed at Belarusian independent media and appeals to those in power in Belarus to stop the purge and the attack on the freedom of speech. Journalism as a profession is being eliminated in Belarus. “Purging the media” is no longer merely a metaphor...
In his new book, OPC Past President William J. Holstein weaves his own personal experience as China correspondent in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with four decades of insight as a close observer of the country’s trajectory, commenting on the critical state of global media and technology’s role as a driver of change. On July 7, 2021, Holstein discussed A Grand Strategy: Countering China, Taming Technology and Restoring the Media, with OPC Governor John Avlon, senior political analyst and anchor at CNN...
The Overseas Press Club of America, which represents more than 500 journalists engaged in international reporting and editing, has been monitoring with growing concern the deteriorating conditions for journalists and media organizations in Nicaragua...
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China is offering to help any journalist who plans to travel to China to cover the Winter Olympics starting in February 2022 in Beijing...
Yuliya Slutskaya – a recognized journalist, longtime media editor, founder and president of the Press Club Belarus – is the laureate of the 2021 IAPC Freedom of Speech Award...
The OPC is saddened to learn that OPC Past President Richard Stolley, who worked for Life and TIME magazines in various roles from reporter to bureau chief and managing editor, died on June 16 of heart complications in Evanston, Illinois at the age of 92. Stolley was OPC President from 2004 to 2006, and participated in many of the club’s events...
On June 15, the OPC hosted a discussion with three journalists who were forced or pressured to leave China: Chris Buckley, the senior New York Times China correspondent; Yvonne Murray, a reporter for Irish public service broadcaster RTÉ; and Gerry Shih of The Washington Post. The moderator was Jodi Schneider, a senior editor at Bloomberg News in New York who recently returned from a five-year stint in Hong Kong, where she served as president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club Hong Kong...
During an OPC book night on June 6 with veteran journalist, editor and publisher Peter L. W. Osnos, he called his new book, An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen, a “reported memoir,” because he approached the project as an investigator uncovering the facts of his own life.
President Joseph Biden’s administration so far has not done enough to reverse restrictive immigration policies of former President Donald Trump, and in some cases might be worsening the situation for those displaced by oppressive conditions in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, panel members said during a discussion on May 18 hosted by the OPC and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting...
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...
The Overseas Press Club of America and 27 other media and press freedom groups worldwide are urging the International Olympic Committee to include press freedom issues in its talks with the Chinese government ahead of the February 2022 Winter Olympics...
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...
On May 27, the OPC hosted a discussion with this year’s Hal Boyle Award winners, kicking off a series of online discussions with OPC Award Winners via Zoom...
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...
