Luncheon tickets are $75 for OPC members and $100 for non-members. The
Foundation encourages media and corporate support at its three levels of
giving: Benefactors, $8,000; Patrons, $5,000; and Friends, $2,000.
Tables seat 10. The reception is at 11:30 a.m.; the luncheon ends
promptly at 2 p.m. All proceeds benefit the OPC Foundation. For
further information, contact Jane Reilly by telephone at 201-493-9087 or
e-mail by going to this page and selecting “Foundation/Scholarship”.
Charles M. Sennott, executive editor, vice president and co-founder of GlobalPost, will be the keynote speaker at the annual OPC Foundation Scholarship Luncheon on Friday, February 18, 2011, at the Yale Club. At the event, the Foundation will award its largest ever scholarship total — $28,000 in scholarships — to 14 graduate and undergraduate college students aspiring to become foreign correspondents. The scholarship recipients who emerged from an incredibly competitive field of 170 applications from more than 55 colleges are from Columbia University, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, Florida Gulf Coast University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of California-Berkeley, University of Chicago, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Western Kentucky University and Yale University.
The OPC Foundation is launching two new scholarships this year in memory of two of the OPC’s most distinguished members. The first, the Walter and Betsy Cronkite Scholarship, was established last year with seed money from CBS News. The second, the Jerry Flint Scholarship for International Business Reporting, was founded by his wife, OPC Foundation board member Kate McLeod, at the time of his sudden death in August. The scholarships will be presented at the luncheon by family members.
The Foundation scholarship program has grown dramatically in the last two decades and is now considered the most prominent scholarship program in the country for aspiring correspondents. The awards are given in the names of eminent journalists and media organizations. Besides addressing a distinguished audience of more than 200 luncheon guests, the scholarship winners also tour the Associated Press and meet with veteran international journalists in a pre-luncheon breakfast, hosted by Bill Holstein, OPC Foundation president. On the night before the luncheon, Reuters will host its traditional reception for current and past winners at its Time Square headquarters. For many, says Holstein, the opportunity to meet and observe prominent journalists in action is as valuable as any monetary awards.
Media organizations have continued to cut back their international operations and, to the extent they do cover global stories, their coverage tends to be spasmodic. Correspondents parachute in, and then depart almost as suddenly. “We’re trying to identify the next generation of correspondents who have the right values,” Holstein noted. “We think the people covering the world ought to speak languages and ought to make commitments to live in-country, not just get on a plane from New York or London.” That winners hail from the most diverse selection of colleges ever is proof, he says, of the Foundation’s efforts to find the students most dedicated to carrying on the traditions of the founders of the Overseas Press Club.
It is precisely to help these students begin careers that the Foundation began and has now expanded its internship program. Begun in 2006 with one AP intern, the program in 2010 funded five interns — who are chosen from among the scholarship winners — to AP bureaus in Dakar and Cairo, and Reuters’ bureaus in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Paris. The Foundation picks up the cost of the airfare and one month’s living expenses for the winners. Interns usually use their own funds to extend their stays to two and three months.
Holstein is especially pleased that Sennott will be addressing this year’s winners. “An experienced bureau chief, an award-winning foreign correspondent and an energetic innovator in multimedia,” he says, “Sennott is attempting to invent the future of international news coverage. His business model is entirely different from that of larger organizations and therefore might be more viable.”
Through nearly 25 years as a reporter and on-air analyst, Sennott has been on the front lines of wars and insurgencies in 15 countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, Algeria, Colombia, Northern Ireland and elsewhere. As executive editor of GlobalPost, he oversaw the design and development of the site and traveled the world to build a team of some 70 correspondents in 50 countries. GlobalPost has also developed strong editorial partnerships with CBS News, the PBS NewsHour and NPR Digital. It also has syndication agreements in place with some 50 newspapers worldwide. Sennott holds a master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an honorary PhD from Providence College.
Holstein is grateful to the dedicated panel of judges who joined him on a brutally cold December morning to choose the 2011 recipients: Jackie Albert-Simon, Politique Internationale; Allan Dodds Frank; Jonathan Gage, strategy+business (Booz & Co.); Sharon Gamsin; Sally Jacobsen, AP; Jeremy Main; Rosalind Massow; Kate McLeod; Sheridan Prasso, Fortune; Hannah Steiman, Clinton Global Initiative; Steve Swanson; Karen Toulon, Bloomberg; and Jack Reerick and Betty Wong, Reuters.
Luncheon tickets are $75 for OPC members and $100 for non-members. The Foundation encourages media and corporate support at its three levels of giving: Benefactors, $8,000; Patrons, $5,000; and Friends, $2,000. Tables seat 10. The reception is at 11:30 a.m.; the luncheon ends promptly at 2 p.m. All proceeds benefit the OPC Foundation. For further information, contact Jane Reilly by telephone at 201-493-9087 or
e-mail by going to this page and selecting “Foundation/Scholarship”.