On July 24, I attended the annual awards dinner of the National Press Club. I serve as a judge for the Friedenberg Award for the Online Journalism category, and this year we selected a work published at the Boston Globe. The journalists were Jenn Abelson and Beth Daley. Jenn was present for the award, and here I am with Jenn, and with Bloomberg’s Jonathan Salant, the chair of our committee.
Here’s a closeup of Jenn and Beth’s award.
I’ve been involved with this awards category for almost ten years now. When Jonathan was NPC president in 2006, I met with him at his home, the intent was to strategize an overhaul of the National Press Club’s website with his very skilled wife Joan Friedenberg, who was the founding editor of Online Newshour and was skilled at cutting edge media-based websites. Unfortunately, Joan had just fallen ill, and within a year she passed away. Today, the award category is named in her honor.
The National Press Club’s annual awards dinner is a night in which many more awards are given as well. One in particular went to C-Span’s Brian Lamb, who was honored with the President’s Citation.
It was a great night, in large part due to the outstanding staff at the Club, as well as the emcee, Club president Theresa Werner! There’s more information about this at the National Press Club’s website.