New York, Sept. 5, 2023 – 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.
Joining the board are Fahim Abed, a co-editor at Lighthouse Reports and a 2023 Nieman fellow at Harvard; Juan Arredondo, a freelance photographer, documentary filmmaker, and visual journalism professor at Rutgers and Columbia University; Brian Byrd, a senior program officer for the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts; Nadja Drost, an independent journalist working in long-form print, television, radio and documentary film; Alexis Okeowo, a staff writer at The New Yorker who has reported on conflict, human rights, and culture across Africa, Mexico and the American South; John Simons, a partner at the Brunswick Group, a global advisory firm focused on strategic issues; and Nilo Tabrizy, a video reporter for The Washington Post’s Visual Forensics team.
Elected to a second term are Raney Aronson-Rath, the executive producer of PBS’ FRONTLINE; Anup Kaphle, executive editor of Rest of World, a digital publication that focuses on technology in the non-Western world; Beth Knobel, associate professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University; Ginger Thompson, chief of correspondents at ProPublica; and Daniella Zalcman, photojournalist and founder of Women Photograph, a non-profit that works to elevate the voices of women and nonbinary visual journalists.
“We are thrilled to welcome such an accomplished group of journalists and international reporting experts to our Board of Governors,” said OPC President Scott Kraft. “They will play key roles in the coming year as we build on an already impressive record of OPC accomplishments – providing forums for journalists to discuss global reporting challenges, offering financial support to reporters, photographers and editors in conflict zones, and, of course, recognizing the finest work from abroad in our annual awards.”
OPC officers and several governors elected in 2022 will serve another one-year term. Officers are: President Scott Kraft, editor at large for enterprise journalism and special projects at the Los Angeles Times; First Vice President Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter with The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, and a professor at Columbia Journalism School, where she also leads the Li Center for Global Journalism; Second Vice President Josh Fine, senior segment producer, HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel; Third Vice President John Avlon, Senior Political Analyst and anchor, CNN; Secretary Jodi Schneider, political news director, Bloomberg TV and Radio; and Treasurer Sandra Stevenson, deputy director of photography, The Washington Post.
Governors continuing to serve are: Amran Abocar, Canada bureau chief and global mining editor, Reuters; Singeli Agnew, an independent cinematographer, producer and director of documentary films and current affairs series; Deborah Amos, a longtime NPR foreign correspondent now teaching journalism at Princeton, Columbia and SUNY New Paltz; Albert Goldson, freelance journalist; Emma Daly, head of the Collaboratory at Human Rights Watch; Laurie Hays, managing partner and founder, Laurie Hays & Assoc; Mary Rajkumar, international investigations editor, The Associated Press; Marjorie Miller, administrator of The Pulitzer Prizes; Rod Nordland, an author and longtime foreign correspondent for The New York Times; Peter Spiegel, US managing editor, Financial Times; Liam Stack, Religion Correspondent, The New York Times; and Vivienne Walt, a Paris-based journalist for TIME magazine and FORTUNE.
The board is thankful for the contributions and dedication of governors whose terms have expired: David Ake, Bill Collins, Farnaz Fassihi, Charles Graeber, Hendrik Hinzel and Derek Kravitz.
For a list of the full board, please click here.
The Overseas Press Club of America is the nation’s oldest and largest association of journalists engaged in international news. Every year, it awards the most prestigious prizes devoted exclusively to international news coverage. It was founded in 1939 by nine foreign correspondents in New York City, and has grown to nearly 500 members worldwide. The club’s mission is to uphold the highest standards in news reporting, advance press freedom and promote good fellowship among colleagues while educating a new generation of journalists.