August 11, 2020
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...
Jimmy Lai, the 71-year-old Hong Kong pro-Democracy media mogul, was arrested Monday under the new National Security Law. His newspaper offices were raided and Lai along with six others were charged with “suspicion of collusion with foreign forces,” according to news reports...
Veteran reporter, editor and columnist Pete Hamill, husband of OPC member Fukiko Hamill, died on Aug. 5 in Brooklyn at age 85...
The OPC is deeply saddened to learn that Christopher Dickey, legendary foreign correspondent, former OPC Governor and longtime member, died suddenly in Paris at the age of 68.
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...
Arlene Getz, Past OPC Vice President and former editorial director of Newsweek: "There's another word that needs to be added to these moving memories of Chris. It's prescient...."
Christopher Dickey was a giant among us. He accomplished five times what the normal driven world-watcher does. He’d produce a solidly researched, poetically composed book in the time it would take most of us to do a Sunday feature. But he was never too busy to spend an hour or two in the Tuileries over a glass of something admirable and some properly aged Conté. He was thrilled when those old Nokias evolved, enabling him to work his magic from a cafe table on the Champs-Elysees when he wasn’t poking into some distant mayhem...
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...
Two generation-defining stories are colliding in America; the first wave of the great virus and the second wave of the civil rights movement. Journalists’ heads are spinning. Reporting on COVID-19 created a sudden and necessary urgency by media leaders to validate government precautions, while protests following the death of George Floyd rapidly diminished the foundational credibility of government institutions altogether. Journalists are called on now to make sense of these enormous social disruptions...
Hong Kong’s new National Security Law, a draconian rule which was drafted by Beijing and took effect July 1, is grave news for press freedom supporters, in addition to citizens of the former British colony who believe it will be used to permanently alter the laissez-faire nature of life in the island city...
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...
In this week’s OPC Press Freedom Update, we look at a press freedom role reversal for the U.S. and the Covid-19 outbreak..
The Overseas Press Club condemns the harassment and targeted attacks on journalists covering the protests across the United States. The OPC and its Press Freedom Committee calls on U.S. law enforcement agencies as well as protesters to stop the use of violence and intimidation against the news media and accept the essential role that journalists play in a democracy.
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 Overseas Press Club asks that people join us in supporting global advocates for press freedom, free speech, and human rights...
More than four decades ago, Saudi Arabia stepped up its soft-power campaign of influence across the Muslim world and permanently shaped the geopolitical landscape, with the campaign’s fruits now taking on a life of their own. On May 14, journalist Krithika Varagur, OPC member and 2019 Sally Jacobsen Fellowship winner, shared insights and discussed her new book about the Saudi fundamentalist program, titled The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project.
World Press Freedom Day on May 3, the annual event organized by the United Nations in 1993, kicks off a weeklong series of observances. The commemorations will take place amid the ongoing battle against the coronavirus pandemic, which has brought some unfortunate side effects for journalism...
During the OPC’s first post-quarantine event online last week, author and club member Dexter “Tiff” Roberts said during a Zoom discussion that fallout from China’s COVID-19 outbreak will likely threaten the country’s ability to transform its economy and worsen an already precarious rural-urban divide. On April 23, Roberts discussed how the pandemic might shape the country’s future, as well as a host of issues raised in his new book “The Myth of Chinese Capitalism,” which was published on March 10 just as the U.S. was starting its lockdown...
In March, China expelled more than a dozen U.S. journalists in retaliation against tightened controls on Chinese journalists imposed in the month before. Among them was Gerry Shih of The Washington Post, the recipient of the OPC’s Citation for Excellence in the Hal Boyle category this year. Shih had served as China correspondent for the Post since September 2018, most recently following the coronavirus outbreak from the beginning of the crisis...
OPC Past President William J. Holstein and his longtime friend and colleague, Toshio Aritake, wrote a blog post from self-quarantine on the tradition of bowing in Japan, and its possible use as a replacement for handshakes in a world threatened by current and future pandemics...
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 Trump Administration’s methods of undermining press freedom and media credibility have been “dangerously effective,” according to a special report prepared for The Committee to Protect Journalists. The CPJ has formally requested a meeting with President Trump to discuss its concerns...
Ivan Flores is an American multimedia journalist based in Afghanistan covering conflict, political and cultural issues. He has filed for a range of media organizations, including The New York Times, Foreign Policy, CBS Radio, CBC, The Guardian, The National, Al Jazeera, NPR, La Repubblica, VOX Media, and others...
The Overseas Press Club is offering members a special deal on the large OPC press ID cards as one of the measures the club is taking to help journalists cover breaking news amidst the danger and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic...
OPC member Marcy McGinnis writes a tribute about her friend and colleague, Maria Mercader, CBS network veteran who died on Sunday, March 29...
The Overseas Press Club of America has made the sad but inevitable decision to cancel the club’s annual awards dinner this year, originally scheduled for April 23...
On Feb. 20, New York Times op-ed columnist and OPC member Nicholas Kristof, along with his wife and co-author, business executive Sheryl WuDunn, joined the OPC to talk about their new book Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, which focuses on the crisis facing America’s working class...
The OPC is saddened to learn that OPC Foundation board member Maria Mercader, CBS network veteran who covered breaking news for nearly three decades, died from COVID-19 in a New York hospital...
Clare Baldwin, award-winning special correspondent for Reuters based in Hong Kong, urged journalists embarking on new careers to balance hard data with ground-level human stories during the OPC Foundation’s Scholar Awards Luncheon on Friday, Feb. 28, 2020...
Every time you shop on Amazon, you can support the Overseas Press Club Foundation...
The Overseas Press Club condemns the Chinese government’s retaliatory decision to revoke the media credentials of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. The OPC hopes that U.S. and China officials can find a solution that would allow more media coverage and greater transparency,..
Harriett Sloan Corporon, wife of OPC Past President John Corporon (1996 – 1998) passed away on Sunday, Jan. 26 in hospice care at home in Park Slope, Brooklyn...
Jim Lehrer Longtime PBS NewsHour anchor and recipient of the OPC's President's Award in 2009, died on January 23rd, at age 85...
As the New York Times correspondent covering Iran, OPC Governor Farnaz Fassihi has been in extra high gear since before the new year, keeping up with assassinations, attacks, mass protests, the tragedy of a downed jetliner, and volatile Iran-US brinksmanship...
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...
Online harassment of journalists, particularly women and minorities, is at an all-time high and only going to get worse. That’s the warning delivered by an expert panel of press freedom defenders who conducted an Editors’ Safety Workshop at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism...
OPC President Pancho Bernasconi participated in a panel titled “The Power of the Image in Foreign Coverage” at the 7th Foreign Editors Circle at the New York headquarters of The Associated Press on Nov. 15. The day-long gathering was hosted by AP and the International Press Institute’s North American Committee...
The OPC donated $950 from its freelance safety training fund to cover the fees for psychosocial and digital security trainers at a hostile environment awareness training course in Nairobi and Limuru, Kenya on Nov. 30...
The number of journalists killed for their reporting dropped to a 17-year low in 2019, according to the annual report by The Committee to Protect Journalists...
The Committee to Protect Journalists found in its annual press freedom survey that at least 250 journalists are imprisoned around the world, and declared China as the top jailer of journalists in the world, overtaking Turkey for the first time in four years...
The world observed a seismic shift of history when the Berlin Wall opened on Nov. 9, 1989, as images and reporting from journalists on the ground showed throngs of residents celebrating the end of a divided city, sparking hope and optimism across the East and West...
OPC member Suzanne Sataline has witnessed turmoil in Hong Kong from close range while covering protests, and experienced firsthand how police are targeting and intimidating journalists. She wrote an extensive piece for The Atlantic recounting how over the last five months, “police tactics have grown more sudden, more violent, and more arbitrary against civilian demonstrators and the press.”
OPC past president William J. Holstein wrote an op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal warning that the recent arrest of a California tour guide on espionage charges is only a symptom of Beijing’s wider tech espionage campaign...
OPC second Vice President Christopher Dickey has blasted President Donald Trump’s decision to green-light a massive Turkish incursion, which he wrote would “open the way to ethnic cleansing,” calling it a betrayal of the Kurds who led the fight against ISIS...
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...
OPC member and former governor Rukmini Callimachi has closely followed escalating conflict in northern Syria after President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops. She is a New York Times foreign correspondent covering Al Qaeda and ISIS, currently at home on maternity leave. Callimachi warned of a growing humanitarian crisis, and expressed dismay that Turkey’s invasion of Syria could revive ISIS and reverse hard-fought gains against the group...
Since the passage of Hong Kong’s controversial extradition bill in June, the country has seen massive protests against the government. The bill was withdrawn, but demonstrations aren’t stopping anytime soon, and their methods are only growing more sophisticated. On Sept. 19, author and journalist Philip Bowring joined New York-based activist Anna Yeung-Cheung to discuss the future of Hong Kong in a panel moderated by OPC governor Pete Engardio, called “Can Hong Kong Survive?”
In late 2018, a caravan of migrants embarked on a journey that would span more than 2,500 miles from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border. On Sept. 16, the OPC and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism co-sponsored a program with two journalists who were in the ground and followed the story closely...
The opc announced results of this year’s election for the Board of Governors at the club’s Annual Meeting on Sept. 3. The slate this year included 10 newly elected or reelected Active board members and two Associate board members, each elected for two-year terms...
The mastheads of Cambodia’s two storied English news outlets look the same as they did when I arrived in the country, but for those of us working covering the swiftly developing Southeast Asian country, the last two years have been a sea change...
New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger wrote an op-ed about a relentless global campaign targeting journalists because of the "fundamental role they play in ensuring a free and informed society.”
This article is reprinted with permission from the online magazine Witness, where it first appeared. Co-authors are Jason Reich, ACOS Alliance Board Member, and Elisabet Cantenys, Executive Director, ACOS Alliance...
The OPC is pleased to announce it is donating $5,500 to pay the cost of one of three trainers at a hostile environment and first aid training course (HEFAT) in Beirut for freelance and local journalists during the last week of November. The program is run by the ACOS Alliance in partnership with International Women’s Media Foundation, Samir Kassir Eyes Center, Golf Center for Human Rights, Frontline Freelance Register, Rory Peck Trust and the Maries Colvin Journalists’ Network.
Chateau Vouilly has loomed large in my mind ever since OPC member John Morris and I worked together to present several events, most notably introducing his book Quelque Part en France in Bayeux, Normandy...
Thirty years have passed since the world witnessed China’s brutal attacks against pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, but the country’s campaign against critics and dissidents has returned with renewed intensity, using more subtle tactics and new technology to carry out oppression. On May 9, the OPC gathered a small army of activists, survivors, experts and foreign correspondents to explore the legacy of Tiananmen, discuss the state of China’s escalating crackdown, and illuminate the road ahead for democracy advocates...
See photos and video from the OPC Annual Awards Dinner on April 18, 2019, with links to award pages and more...
Watch video clips from the April 24 book night with Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter who spent almost two years in Tehran’s Evin prison. He discussed his experiences as well as foreign policy concerns, and the contents of his book "Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison–Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High-Stakes Diplomacy, and the Extraordinary Efforts It Took to Get Me Out"...
Bill Gentile, a veteran journalist and documentary filmmaker who teaches journalism at American University in Washington, DC, has launched a new documentary TV series to explore the lives and challenges of freelance journalists on the front lines around the world.,,
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...
Over the last two decades, newspapers and other traditional print media have been under increasing pressure to provide video and multimedia content. But in today’s era of ubiquitous cell phone cameras, viral distribution, and manipulated content, video storytelling comes with many pitfalls. On Oct. 18, a panel of experts gathered for a panel to present a “Video 101” seminar on perils and best practices of using video footage...
On sept. 20, several OPC members attended a performance of the play “Intractable Woman, A Theatrical Memo on Anna Politkovskaya,” which covered the interrogation, trial and assassination of the Russian journalist and human rights activist. Politkovskaya reported extensively on the Second Chechen War for the independent daily Novaya Gazeta and was killed in her Moscow apartment building in 2006...
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...
