The snow has melted, spring is in the air so it must be OPC awards season. The judging panels, under the guidance of OPC First Vice President Arlene Getz of Newsweek, have been working hard to come up with winners in all twenty award categories.
The OPC’s 71st Annual Awards Dinner is set for Thursday, April 22 at the Mandarin Oriental at Columbus Circle. The added attraction this year is that the reception beforehand will be in the Lobby Lounge, one floor below the Ballroom. The Lounge has beautiful large windows overlooking Columbus Circle and Central Park and will accommodate a larger crowd.
In year’s past the reception has been so crowded that guests could barely move so spreading the cocktails over two floors should relieve that congestion. Also we have added a reception after the awards dinner called “Meet the Winners.” Microsoft will sponsor the pre-dinner reception and we are actively seeking a post-dinner reception sponsor. OPC member tickets will remain the same price, $225 per ticket for a member and spouse or one guest. Non-member tickets are $500. Tables will also be sold at different levels: $12,000 for Patrons, $8,000 for Sponsors and $5,000 for Friends. Bill Holstein, former President and current President of the OPC Foundation, is the Chair of the Dinner Committee again this year after the success of last year’s awards dinner.
President Allan Dodds Frank will bestow the President’s Award on Andy Rooney, writer, author, broadcaster and raconteur for CBS News – 60 Minutes. Rooney has been an OPC member since 1947. He covered the European Theater including the D-Day Invasion for Stars and Stripes and was one of eight correspondents who flew with the Eighth Air Force on the first American bombing raid on Germany. Rooney writes a national newspaper column for Tribune Media Services and is a prolific book author with 16 books to his credit including the current one “Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit,” published in 2009 by PublicAffairs. However, Rooney is most famous for his wry, humorous and sometimes controversial essays that are the signature end piece for 60 Minutes.
Presenting the awards is Kimberly Dozier, most recently correspondent for CBS News Washington bureau who is the new Associated Press intelligence correspondent. Dozier concentrates her coverage on national security issues. She worked in Iraq from 2003 to 2006, but in May of 2006 her car was hit by a bomb killing the CBS cameraman and soundman along with a U.S. Army Captain and his Iraqi translator. She was badly wounded by shrapnel and spent several months in therapy and rehabilitation. At the 2007 OPC Awards Dinner Dozier gave a moving tribute and lit the candle in honor of injured journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan. She has covered Iraq under Saddam to the U.S. invasion, the hunt for Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, the Kosovo refugee exodus, Vladimir Putin’s election and the violence in Northern Ireland.
David Rohde of The New York Times will light the candle in honor of the 71 (according to the CPJ) journalists killed last year in the line of duty. That number grows every year and so the candlelighting ceremony becomes even more poignant in light of the dangerous profession that journalism has become. Rohde himself, along with an Afghan reporter/translator, were kidnapped by the Taliban in November 2008 as he was on his way to interview a Taliban commander near Kabul. He was held captive for seven months in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan until he made a stunning escape in June 2009 by taking advantage of sleeping guards and jumping from a second story, dropping down a 20 foot wall with a rope. His book detailing the experience A Rope and a Prayer will be published in the fall. Rohde received the OPC’s 1995 Hal Boyle Award for his exposure of the Srebrenica massacre and is a two-time Pulitzer prize winner.
This year’s OPC Awards Dinner cast is impressive, but as always, the award winners and the video presentations are the centerpiece of the dinner. Winners come from far-flung corners of the globe to accept their awards in person because they know that the OPC awards for excellence in international reporting are important and prestigious. Invitations will be sent in the mail to all members. Reservations are essential.