Event Coverage Highlight

CBS News’ Jeff Glor in New York. Photo: Timothy Kuratek/CBS 201 7CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By Jane Reilly

Jeff Glor, the anchor of the “CBS Evening News with Jeff Glor,” the network’s flagship evening news broadcast, will be the keynote speaker at the annual Overseas Press Club Foundation Scholar Awards Luncheon on Friday, Feb. 23, at the Yale Club. The event begins with a reception at the club’s Rooftop Terrace at 11:30 a.m., followed by the luncheon in the Grand Ballroom. which ends promptly at 2:00 p.m.

Bill Holstein, president of the OPC Foundation, said the choice of Glor to headline the Foundation’s signature event was especially significant for this year’s scholars, since he represents a new generation at the helm of network broadcast news. He noted, “Glor is at the heart of the legacy media’s attempts to transform itself to compete with many different forms and formats in a changing and volatile news climate.”

Glor, an Emmy-award winner and veteran CBS News journalist, has reported across the globe for virtually all CBS News broadcast and digital platforms in his 10 years with the network. He has anchored numerous breaking news stories, most recently in the field for Hurricane Irma and in the studio for the Las Vegas shootings. Glor was a lead anchor on CBSN, CBS’ 24/7 streaming news service, during its critical launch period. As CBSN continues to grow, Glor will maintain a prominent presence on the digital streaming channel. As a correspondent for “CBS This Morning” and “60 Minutes Sports,” he filed reports from Alaska, Africa, Greenland, Ireland and Newfoundland, among others.

Also at the luncheon, the Foundation will award a combination of scholarships and fellowships to 16 graduate and undergraduate college students aspiring to become foreign correspondents. Holstein is especially pleased to announce the first award in the name of Sally Jacobsen, who died unexpectedly in the spring of 2017. A former vice president of the Foundation and a widely experienced Associated Press correspondent, she was the first woman to serve as the news service’s international editor, overseeing coverage of wars, terrorism and a stream of history-making events. Her 39-year career took her from a Washington economics correspondent to Brussels to the pressure-packed job at AP’s New York headquarters, where she lead scores of international correspondents through the years of 9/11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Sally was part of the very soul of the Foundation board, having played an integral role in launching the fellowship program and the sending of our first young fellow to the Bangkok bureau of the AP and then expanding the program to include other news organizations. With every fiber of her being, she believed in what we are doing,” Holstein added.

Holstein is concerned with how the current economic model supporting international news will affect this generation of young journalists. “We think we are witnessing a decline in the number of young Americans who believe that becoming a foreign correspondent is a great and glorious cause. So we are increasingly playing the role of an institution that encourages young people to see the act of covering international stories as something that is valuable to themselves and to our democracy as a whole,” he said.

The 2018 winning recipients are from Brown University, City University of New York, Columbia University, DePauw University, New York University, University of California-Berkeley, University of Missouri, University of Texas at Austin and Yale University. “These young people inspire me every year because they want to travel down what I regard as the sacred path of bearing witness. They just want a chance. Our imperative is to help train them and keep them safe as they explore the world,” said Holstein.

Events for the 2018 winners will last three days starting on Thursday afternoon, when the Foundation will host two panels at Reuters for those award winners interested in either business journalism or television news. That evening, Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen Adler will host the traditional reception for current and past winners of OPC Foundation awards at the wire service’s Times Square headquarters. On Friday, besides addressing a distinguished audience of more than 200 luncheon guests at the Yale Club, the award winners will meet with Holstein and veteran international journalists in a pre-luncheon breakfast and with several foreign editors following the luncheon. For many, says Holstein, the opportunity to meet and observe prominent journalists in action is as valuable as any monetary awards.

For the fourth year in a row, on the Saturday after the luncheon, the OPC Foundation will offer a full day of risk assessment and situational training for the winners at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Frank Smyth, president and founder of Global Journalist Security, a hostile environment training firm based in Washington DC, will again lead the program. Those who participated in the past called the experience invaluable. “We have a responsibility to make sure our winners engage in the world’s stories in ways that keep them safe,” Holstein said. “We will continue to do what we can, as fiscal sponsors of the ACOS Alliance, to see that journalists throughout the world have the training and support they need to do their jobs as well and as securely as possible.”

Up to 12 of this year’s winners will receive fellowships to work in the foreign bureaus of the Foundation’s media partners, including the AP, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, GroundTruth Project and Forbes. The fellowships ensure that the awardees gain valuable experience and insight working with veteran editors and reporters. In 2017, the Foundation funded fellowships in bureaus across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and the Middle East. The Foundation picks up the cost of the airfare and one to two months of living expenses for the winners.

Holstein is grateful to Bloomberg, which again hosted the judging in December, and to the dedicated panel of judges who chose the 2018 recipients: Allen Alter; Bill Collins; John Daniszewski of the AP; Joe Flint of The Wall Street Journal; Allan Dodds Frank; Sharon Gamsin; Tim Ferguson of Forbes Asia; Holstein; Adam Horvath of The Wall Street Journal; Larry Martz; Marcy McGinnis; Maria Mercader of CBS News; Kate McLeod; Ellen Nimmons of the AP; Jim Pensiero; Charlie Sennott of the GroundTruth Project; Michael Serrill; Steve Swanson of the New York Botanical Garden; and Karen Toulon of Bloomberg.

Lydia Polgreen, HuffPost editor-in-chief, was previously announced to be the speaker but she had to cancel because of a scheduling conflict. Luncheon tickets are $85 for OPC members and $150 for non-members. The Foundation encourages media and corporate support at its three levels of giving: Benefactors, $9,000; Patrons, $6,000; and Friends, $3,000. Tables seat 10. All proceeds benefit the OPC Foundation. For further information, contact Jane Reilly at 201 493-9087 or foundation@opcofamerica.org. 