Former OPC Scholar Pens Book on Yemen EVENT PREVIEW: NOVEMBER 12 by Sonya K
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THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB OF AMERICA, NEW YORK, NY • October 2012 Former OPC Scholar Pens Book on Yemen EVENT PREVIEW: NOVEMBER 12 by Sonya K. Fry The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-Qa- eda, and America’s War in Arabia [W.W. Norton & Company, Novem- ber, 2012] is an eye-opening look at the successes and failures in fight- ing a new type of war in the turbu- lent country of Yemen, written by Gregory D. Johnsen, who is an OPC Foundation Scholar, a Fulbright fel- low in Yemen, part of a 2009 US- Photo: Taylor Jeff AID conflict assessment team and Gregory D. Johnsen is now a doctoral candidate in Near Eastern studies at Princeton Univer- balancing act of staying in power a walked out the front door to free- sity. “snake dance.” For years this dance dom. Johnsen’s crisp storytelling Johnsen takes readers into Ye- included concealing Islamists from brings events to life and shows how meni mosques where clerics in the the prying eyes of U.S. intelligence a handful of men thousands of miles 1980’s recruited young men to ji- and yet later he allowed the U.S. to from the United States and far from had to fight the Russian invaders in conduct attacks that killed dozens of the battlefields of Iraq and Afghani- Afghanistan. These men eventually Al-Qaeda operatives including Abu stan continue to keep policymakers formed the basis for the Al-Qaeda Ali al-Harithi, who was known as up at night fighting a clandestine movement. The story also leads to the “godfather” by U.S. intelligence. war of drones and suicide bombers the presidential palace in Yemen The dramatic story sounds like a in an unforgiving corner of Arabia. where the country’s military dicta- Hollywood movie: Haritihi turned In 2006, Johnsen won an OPC tor, Ali Abdullah Salih vascillated on his cell phone as he left a secret Foundation’s David Schweisberg between helping the U.S. get rid meeting which signaled a predator scholarship while he was a student of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Pen- drone to track him. The first mis- at the University of Arizona. His insula and hindering the process. sile from the drone exploded next winning essay was on presidential Salih himself called this delicate to Harithi’s speeding car. He threw politics in Yemen’s fledgling de- the phone out of the window and mocracy. His stories on Yemen have Inside. screamed at everyone to get out, but appeared in The New York Times, there was nowhere to go since they Foreign Policy and Newsweek and Shepard Book Night Recap.............2 were in the middle of the desert. The he is a frequent guest on NPR and drone fired its second missile and CNN. Punch and the Pentagon Papers....3 the car exploded in flames. William J. Holstein, president of Memorial for Sulzberger..................4 Less than four years after the OPC Foundation, will serve as Harithi’s death and the destruction interlocutor for the Book Night on People..........................................5-9 of the original Al-Qaeda network in Monday, November 12. The recep- Yemen, the group rebounded as 23 tion will start at 6 p.m. with the talk People Remembered..................9-11 men tunneled out of a maximum- at 6:30 p.m. Books will be available A Birthday in Paris.........................10 security prison in Sana’a and into for purchase and signing. RSVP by a neighboring mosque where they calling the OPC at 212-626-9220 or New Books....................................12 said their morning prayers and then e-mail [email protected] Shepard Provides Path for Newspapers to Realize Digital Longevity EVENT RECAP: OCTOBER 15 by Aimee Vitrak OPC member, CUNY Journalism Dean and long- serving journalist Steve Shepard gave everyone at his OPC book night for Deadlines and Disruptions: My Tur- bulent Path From Print to Digital an education in recent journalism history and a forecast for where journalism is headed. He is not the first to sound the death knell for pa- per, but he may be the first among his generation to write about the real possibility that the present print-and-deliv- er model of newspapers will go the way of silent movies, Photo: Sonya K. Fry to paraphrase Shepard’s example. He said it would be difficult for him to forsee a time without a Sunday paper, At the reception from left: Lynn Povich, David Wallace, because Sunday papers are advertising-rich, but the daily Andy Nagorski, Steve Shepard and Bill Holstein print editions are migrating to digital platforms. Post will earn all year. If newspapers are to be successful Shepard outlined the final chapter of his book which Shepard contends, management must stop chasing pop- gives a case-study of a large metro daily he referred to as up ad dollars and emphasizing page views. The Daily Bugle, a borrowing of the oft-named Marvel On average, people used to spend forty-five minutes comics newspaper. He dissected the business model of a day reading a newspaper, now a reader spends about newspapers and how they can be supported in the digi- three minutes on one website shopping for the article tal age. Newspapers still do the majority of original re- porting, he said, but in the past five to six years, they they would like to read. Shepard referred to these read- have also lost half of their advertising revenue, or $25 ers as “drive-by visitors.” “It’s like buying a single song billion dollars. The digital age was originally thought instead of an entire album,” he said. Instead, the trick is as a rescue for newspapers, but online advertising has for The Daily Bugle to specialize and focus its coverage turned out to be less lucrative than hoped at less than $1 to give readers something they can get nowhere else. To billion in that same five-to-six year timeframe. Online cover for world news, “link,” he said, knowing his audi- advertising is successful for other venues like Google, ence was filled with those rapt for foreign reporting. “Do Yahoo! and AOL, but newspapers have yet to see similar what you do best and link to the rest,” he said. returns. Shepard said that the amount Google earns in ad Shepard also suggested that offering services for the revenue in eight hours is equal to what The Huffington (Continued on Page 4) OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB OF AMERICA • BOARD OF GOVERNORS PRESIDENT SECRETARY Deidre Depke Santiago Lyon ASSOCIATE BOARD PAST PRESIDENTS Michael Serrill Jonathan Dahl Executive Editor VP and Director of MEMBERS EX-OFFICIO Assistant Managing Former Editor-in-Chief The Daily Beast Photography Brian Byrd David A. Andelman Editor Smart Money Associated Press Program Officer John Corporon Bloomberg Markets Adam B. Ellick NYS Health Allan Dodds Frank ACTIVE BOARD *Video and Print Marcus Mabry Foundation Alexis Gelber FIRST VICE PRESIDENT Jacqueline Albert- Journalist Editor at Large William J. Holstein Tim Ferguson Simon The New York Times International Herald Emma Daly Marshall Loeb Editor U.S. Bureau Chief * on leave attending Tribune Communications Larry Martz Forbes Asia Politique Internationale Harvard Kennedy School Director Roy Rowan John Martin Human Rights Watch Leonard Saffir SECOND VICE PRESIDENT Amar C. Bakshi Arlene Getz Writer/Editor Larry Smith Abigail Pesta JD/MBA student Editor-in-Charge, Media Sarah Lubman Richard B. Stolley Editorial Director Yale University Thomson Reuters Romesh Ratnesar Partner Women in the World Deputy Editor Brunswick Group EXECUTIVE Rebecca Azmat Khan Bloomberg DIRECTOR THIRD VICE PRESIDENT Blumenstein Digital Producer Businessweek Minky Worden Sonya K. Fry Toni Reinhold Page One Editor PBS - Frontline Director of Global Editor in Charge, The Wall Street Journal Tom Squitieri Initiatives EDITOR New York Desk Evelyn Leopold Freelance Journalist Human Rights Watch Aimee Vitrak Reuters Paul Brandus Independent Journalist West Wing Report United Nations Seymour Topping Abi Wright OPC TREASURER Emeritus Director ISSN-0738-7202 Dorinda Elliott Howard Chua-Eoan Daphna Linzer Professor of Alfred I. duPont – Copyright © 2002 Global Affairs Editor News Director Senior Reporter International Columbia University Over seas Press Club of Conde Nast Traveler Time Pro Publica Journalism Awards America Columbia University 40 West 45 Street, New York, NY 10036 USA • Phone: (212) 626-9220 • Fax: (212) 626-9210 • Website: opcofamerica.org OPC Bulletin • October 2012 • Page 2 Inside the Decision: Punch and the Pentagon Papers by Seymour Topping al of similar nature. I stated also In my cherished remem- that publication was vital since brances of Punch Sulzberger, what was revealed in the Pa- one episode endures as the most pers about Vietnam War policies revealing of his devotion and would serve to guide Congress courage in safeguarding the and the public in determining mission of The New York Times if new safeguards were needed and the future of American jour- against secret arbitrary action by nalism. The episode unfolded the Executive branch. at The Times on the morning Punch looked intently at the of April 29, 1971 when Abe lawyers and then back at the Rosenthal, then managing edi- Punch answering questions on June 16, 1971, at a editors. An enormous burden tor, Jim Greenfield, the foreign news conference about the Pentagon Papers. had been thrust on the 45-year- editor, and I, deputy managing old publisher. He, alone, had to editor, were summoned to the Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger died Sep- decide what was in the national Board Room on the fourteenth tember 23 after a long illness at his home in interest, and weigh the warnings floor. Entering, we saw grouped of his long-time legal counsel in a corner Louis Loeb, senior Southampton, New York.