One year ago, at our last OPC Awards gala, paying tribute to two of our most courageous fallen heroes, I hardly imagined that I would be standing in the same position again with the identical burden. While last year, we faced the sad task of recognizing the lives and careers of two incomparable photographers, Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, this year our attention turns to two writers — The New York Times‘ Anthony Shadid and Marie Colvin of The Sunday Times of London. While our focus then was on the horrors of Gadhafi’s Libya, it is now the Syria of Bashar al- Assad. All four of these giants of our profession gave their lives in the service of an ideal and a mission that we consider so vital to our way of life — a full, complete and objective understanding of a world that is so all too often contemptuous or ignorant of these values. Theirs are the same talents and accomplishments to which we pay tribute in each of our awards tonight — and that the Overseas Press Club represents every day throughout the year. For our mission, like theirs, does not stop as we file from this room.
The OPC has moved resolutely into the digital age but our winners and their skills remain grounded in the most fundamental tenets expressed through words and pictures — unwavering objectivity, unceasing curiosity, vivid storytelling, thought-provoking commentary. Moreover, when you applaud, as your forebears have for 73 years, the men and women who are called to the podium, remember all those whose work is recognized, implicitly, tonight and every time we open a newspaper, magazine or book, turn on a radio or television, log onto a computer.
The revenues generated tonight by all our guests, sponsors and advertisers help our Freedom of the Press Committee engage governments around the world that mistreat journalists and stand in the way of press freedom. Thanks to a seed grant from the Ford Foundation, and under the leadership of my predecessor Allan Dodds Frank and Aimee Vitrak, we have also created a Global Parachute website with tips and contacts for journalists as they parachute across the world in pursuit of stories. Of course, we should also recognize the host of conversations and book parties that continue to enrich the lives of our members and guests year-round. Finally, the OPC Foundation for two decades has awarded scholarships and internships to the most promising young students of journalism.
So as we call each winner to the stage to celebrate their work, please bear in mind how important they and all of their unsung colleagues are to keeping us enlightened and free, and support the work of the Overseas Press Club of America.