THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB OF AMERICA, NEW YORK, NY • April 2014 Dinner Highlights Foreign Correspondents and OPC Jubilee EVENT PREVIEW: APRIL 24 by Sonya K. Fry All OPC Awards Dinners are special to the Club. Still, in the past few years, hearts and minds have been focused on making the OPC’s 75th Anniversary Awards Dinner on Thursday, April 24 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel an extra special occa- From left: Samantha Power, Bob Simon and David Muir sion. Early in the day, OPC represen- for Time. She became a scholar of CBS News. He has also reported tatives will participate in a special U.S. foreign policy and an advisor from the CBS London and Tel Aviv ceremony to flick the switch that to then-Senator Barack Obama and bureaus and in 1987 was named the lights up the Empire State Build- subsequently President Obama. CBS News Chief Middle East Cor- ing. Throughout the dinner, the New OPC President Michael Serrill respondent. He has won several OPC York landmark will be bathed in blue has selected veteran foreign corre- awards, most notably for coverage of — the official color of the OPC — in spondent Bob Simon as this year’s Vietnam, Egypt and the Rabin assas- honor of the Club’s anniversary and recipient of the OPC President’s sination in Israel. He is currently a gala. Award. Simon began his reporting full-time correspondent for “CBS-60 The keynote speaker is former career 42 years ago in Vietnam for (Continued on Page 2) foreign correspondent and current U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Samantha Pow- OPC Board Appoints New Executive Director er. She began her journalism career The Board of Gov- investment bank Mor- covering the Yugoslav Wars from ernors of the OPC gan Stanley and, most 1993 to 1996. In 2003, her second has appointed Patri- recently, as an editor for book, A Problem from Hell: America cia Kranz, a longtime Reuters. and the Age of Genocide won the overseas correspondent Kranz has a bach- Pulitzer Prize. In 2004, Time maga- and editor, as its new elor’s degree in Euro- zine named her one of the 100 most Executive Director. pean history and French influential people in the world and Kranz will assume her from the University of new post upon the re- in 2007 she wrote a regular column Patricia Kranz Michigan and a mas- tirement of Executive ter’s in international af- Director Sonya Fry in fairs from Columbia University. She May. Inside. also studied French language and Kranz lived and worked in Mos- civilization at the Sorbonne. Russia Book Night Preview.............3 cow for almost a decade, first as a Kranz brings a rich background Bloomberg Breakfast Recap...........3 freelancer, then for BusinessWeek, covering the collapse of the Soviet in overseas journalism to the OPC,” People..........................................5-9 Union and the creation of a new says OPC President Michael S. Ser- democratic Russia. She subsequent- rill. “During her time at Business- People Remembered.................9-10 ly worked as European editor and Week, The Times and Reuters she demonstrated an ability to manage Club History Reflections................11 national editor for BusinessWeek, as a top business editor for The New big projects with skill. The Board New Books....................................12 York Times, as a vice president for (Continued on Page 10) (Continued From Page 1) Minutes,” a show he has contributed to for 18 years. The Awards Presenter is David Muir, Weekend An- chor of ABC News. Muir is also co-anchor of 20/20, ABC news magazine. Muir joined ABC News in 2003 and in 2012 was the first American journalist to report from Mogadishu on the Somali famine. He also reported on the Israeli war with Hezbollah and was in Gaza in 2007 to cover the Hamas coup. The nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, the earthquake in Haiti and the uprisings in Tahir Square were covered by Muir for ABC World News. OPC Foundation President William J. Holstein is A scene from the first OPC Dinner in 1940, which the Awards Dinner Chairman who is responsible for cor- is on the invitation mailed to OPC members. porate dinner support of the event. Robert Friedman of first President Wythe Williams, London correspondent Bloomberg News served as head judge for the 22 award for The New York Times who covered WWI. That first categories. A special edition of Dateline magazine is be- ing produced under the editorship of OPC Board mem- awards dinner had an ambitious international menu and bers Charles Wallace and photo editor Robert Nickels- the Mandarin Oriental will do a modern adapation of the berg, designer Nancy Novick and OPC intern Mariam original menu for the Jubilee Dinner. Haris. The magazine will feature writers and photogra- Pricing for this year’s dinner is $250 for OPC mem- phers who covered some of the biggest events through bers and one guest; $750 for non-members. Table prices decades of OPC history. are $7,500 (Friend), $9,000 (Sponsor), $12,000 (Patron), The OPC’s first dinner was held in February 1940 and $15,000 (Fellow). With the Lenovo-sponsored pre-party celebrated the publication of The Inside Story, a book and Daimler-sponsored after-party, the event promises to of behind-the-scenes stories by foreign correspondents, be a jubuliant celebration of the OPC. edited by Robert Spiers Benjamin. Guests included dignitaries such as former President Herbert Hoover, The 75th Anniversary OPC Awards Dinner takes Alexander Kerensky, a major political leader of the Tru- place on Thursday, April 24 at the Mandarin Oriental doviks, a moderate socialist party that was swept away Hotel, 80 Columbus Circle at 60th Street. Reception be- during the Russian Revolution, OPC founding members gins at 6 p.m., Dinner starts at 7 p.m., and the Meet the Irene Corbally Kuhn and Robert Benjamin and OPC’s Winners After Party ends the evening. OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB OF AMERICA • BOARD OF GOVERNORS PRESIDENT ACTIVE BOARD Martin Dickson Robert Nickelsberg ASSOCIATE BOARD PAST PRESIDENTS Michael Serrill Jacqueline Albert- U.S. Managing Editor Freelance MEMBERS EX-OFFICIO Assistant Managing Simon Financial Times Photojournalist Brian Byrd David A. Andelman Editor U.S. Bureau Chief Program Officer John Corporon Bloomberg Markets Politique Internationale Arlene Getz Romesh Ratnesar NYS Health Allan Dodds Frank Editor-in-Charge Deputy Editor Foundation Alexis Gelber FIRST VICE PRESIDENT Amar C. Bakshi Digital News Bloomberg William J. Holstein Tim Ferguson JD/MBA student Thomson Reuters Businessweek Sarah Lubman Marshall Loeb Editor Yale University Partner Larry Martz Forbes Asia Azmat Khan Martin Smith Brunswick Group Roy Rowan Rebecca Senior Digital Producer President Leonard Saffir SECOND VICE PRESIDENT Blumenstein Al Jazeera Rain Media Daniel Sieberg Larry Smith Abigail Pesta Deputy Editor in Chief Head of Media Outreach Richard B. Stolley Freelance Journalist The Wall Street Journal Evelyn Leopold Seymour Topping Google Independent Journalist Emeritus Executive Director THIRD VICE PRESIDENT Paul Brandus United Nations Professor of Minky Worden Sonya K. Fry Toni Reinhold West Wing Report International Journalism Director of Global Editor in Charge, Dafna Linzer Columbia University Initiatives Executive Director- New York Desk Howard Chua-Eoan Managing Editor Human Rights Watch Designate Reuters Former News Director MSNBC.com Charles Wallace Patricia Kranz Time Santiago Lyon Financial Writer Abi Wright TREASURER VP and Director of Director EDITOR Dorinda Elliott Jane Ciabattari Photography Alfred I. duPont – Aimee Vitrak Freelance Journalist Freelance Writer Associated Press Columbia University NPR.org, Daily Beast Awards OPC SECRETARY Marcus Mabry ISSN-0738-7202 Jonathan Dahl Deidre Depke Editor at Large Copyright © 2014 Editor in Chief Executive Editor The New York Times Over seas Press Club of WSJMoney The Daily Beast America 40 West 45 Street, New York, NY 10036 USA • Phone: (212) 626-9220 • Fax: (212) 626-9210 • Website: opcofamerica.org OPC Bulletin • April 2014 • Page 2 Feifer’s Book Looks at Russia From the Inside EVENT PREVIEW: MARCH 31 people. In August 1991, Feifer was an under- by Patricia Kranz graduate spending a summer in Moscow Gregory Feifer’s timing could not have when a group of hard-liners tried to carry out been better. Following the Sochi Olympics an ill-fated coup to extend Soviet rule. He and Vladimir Putin’s aggressive actions in returned in 1999 as a journalist and stayed Ukraine, people around the world are more for eight years. In 2008, he covered the Rus- interested in Russia than they have been sia-Georgia war from the breakaway Geor- since the Soviet Union’s collapse more than gian region of South Ossetia and traveled two decades ago. to Siberia, Belgrade and Berlin to report on Feifer’s new book, Russians: The People Gregory Feifer the Kremlin’s use of Gazprom, the Russian Behind the Power, explores the seeming gas monopoly, as an instrument of foreign paradoxes of life in Russia by unraveling policy. the nature of its people: what is it in their In a blurb Stephen Sestanovich says history and their conception of themselves “This is one of the best-ever books written that makes them baffling to the West? Feifer by an American journalist trying to make corrects pervasive misconceptions by show- sense of Russia. Full of wonderfully poi- ing that much of what appears inexplicable gnant family reminiscences, acute cultural about the country is logical when seen from insight, and off-color Russian jokes.” the inside. Joshua Rubenstein, who reviewed the The former NPR Moscow correspondent book for The New York Times, will be the draws on his family history and his decade interlocutor. Rubenstein is a longtime Asso- of experience as a journalist there to create ciate at Harvard University’s Davis Center a portrait of today’s Russia from the bottom for Russian and Eurasian Studies and the au- up.