NPC Update-1 Podcast

For the first time in National Press Club history, the leadership team is all-female, with President Lisa Nicole Matthews, Vice President Jen Judson, Secretary Gillian Rich, Treasurer Eileen O'Reilly, and Membership Secretary Emily Wilkins at the helm. In this episode of Update-1, NPC Broadcast Podcast Team member Shannon Fisher speaks with USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page, a longtime NPC member who has served as president of the White House Correspondents Association and the Gridiron Club. This conversation marks the milestone of the National Press Club’s historic 2021 leadership team by examining the impact of female leadership in the field of journalism.

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The National Press Club has always stood for press freedom, and this edition of Update-1 features a couple of journalists who have been honored by the club in the past but are struggling for their freedom. Maria Ressa and Austin Tice were among the journalists remembered during events on World Press Freedom Day. Ressa, the founder of the digital news site Rappler, delivered a powerful statement about the need for press freedom, while Tice's 11-year old niece talked about some of the memories she has of her uncle, who has been held in Syria for more than 8 years. Both Ressa and Tice have received the club's Freedom on the Press Award, named after former NPC President John Aubuchon.

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On Monday, May 3, The National Press Club will host a virtual event for World Press Freedom Day highlighting the cases of three journalists in need: Austin Tice, Maria Ressa and Emilio Gutierrez-Soto, all past recipients of the Club’s John Aubuchon Award for press freedom. In this episode of Update-1, Press Freedom Team chair John Donnelly speaks to Broadcast/Podcast Team co-vice chair Adam Konowe about the upcoming event and the plight of these and other journalists. He also addresses the state of press freedom more broadly, including specific incidents at home and abroad that demonstrate the danger posed not merely to journalists, but to truth and civic society at large.

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Southern Poverty Law Center President and CEO Margaret Huang says the U.S. is facing a crisis of "far-right extremism and deep threats to our democracy." This episode of Update-1 features part of NPC President Lisa Matthews' recent interview with Huang at a Headliners event. The issues they discuss include the increase in domestic terror attacks, why there has been a surge in white nationalist groups and how parents should talk to their children about rejecting hate.

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In January, Lisa Matthews, an Associated Press assignment manager for video, was inaugurated as the 114th president of the National Press Club. In this edition of Update-1, Matthews talks with Broadcast/Podcast co-vice chair Adam Konowe about the Club’s pandemic-driven challenges and opportunities during the past year, as well as what’s to come. She also addresses the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion as the Club’s third black president and one of only 14 women to hold the position in more than a century.

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The number of journalists killed on the job has been on the rise as reprisal murders more than doubled last year worldwide. In this edition of Update-1, Broadcast Podcast team member Tom Young talks to NPC member and Committee to Protect Journalists' advocacy director Dr. Courtney Radsch about the most dangerous countries for journalists, and why 80 percent of the people responsible for their murders never face charges. Dr. Radsch also discusses the alarming rate at which journalists have been jailed in retaliation for their work.

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Veteran aviation editor, pilot and flight instructor Joy Finnegan has seen and experienced a lot, from the cockpit to the editor’s chair. But, arguably, nothing in her extensive training could have totally prepared her for the events of the past 18 months. In this edition of Update-1, she speaks with NPC Broadcast/Podcast Co-vice Chair Adam Konowe about the challenges of editing three print and digital trade media titles, covering travel-related events from the Boeing 737 MAX grounding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the prospect for the aviation industry to recover as vaccines become more plentiful.

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Millions of people heard the late Larry King hosting either his national call-in radio program on the Mutual Broadcasting System or his nightly interview show on CNN. But what was it like working with him? This edition of the Update-1 podcast features Pat Piper, King's producer for 10 years at Mutual, speaking to the Broadcast Podcast Committee earlier this month. In an interview with committee chairman Mark Hamrick, Piper discusses what King was like off the air and talks about his memories of taking the show on the road before live audiences all across the country. Piper also was a ghostwriter on four of King's books. King died last month at the age of 87.

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The advocacy director for the Committee to Protect Journalist, Dr. Courtney Radsch, believes the Biden administration has the opportunity to restore U.S. press freedom leadership after what she says has been an abdication of that role over the past several years. In this edition of Update-1, she talks to Broadcast Podcast team member Tom Young about what steps CPJ would like President Biden to take. Dr. Radsch says they include the president delivering a major speech recognizing the role journalists play in providing the public with accurate information "at a time when it has never been more important." CPJ also wants the U.S. to make press freedom a foreign policy priority and appoint a press freedom envoy.

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The NPC's 2020 President Michael Freedman had the daunting challenge of leading the club during the coronavirus pandemic. In this edition of Update-1, Freedman discusses with Broadcast Podcast Committee member Irv Chapman how the club suspended all in-person services in March and then successfully pivoted to virtual newsmaker and headliner interviews, conducting more than 40 virtual events and in the process booking guests who normally would not have been available. He also talks about how the club's virtual inaugural this Saturday, when Lisa Matthews will be sworn-in as the 114th president, is also a charity event, and why maintaining the club's morale and membership during the pandemic have been top accomplishments.

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