Test your knowledge at our September trivia night
Know the history of Hearst? Think your memory of the First Amendment is first-rate? Then FOIL the competition at the Deadline Club’s “Back to Journalism School Trivia Night” at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism on Thursday, Sept. 16 at 7 p.m.
Noah Tarnow of The Big Quiz Thing will bring plenty of questions and challenges for several rounds of competition. Teams of four or more people will compete for prizes and bragging rights during this battle of journalism wits. Maybe that History of Journalism class will pay off big!
Admission is free to all Deadline Club members and CUNY SPJ members, which includes light snacks/desserts and beverages. RSVPs are required.
What: Back to Journalism School Trivia Night
When: Thursday, Sept. 16 at 7 p.m.
Where: CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, 219 West 40th Street b/t 7th and 8th Aves.
Cost: FREE for Deadline Club members and CUNY SPJ members, $10 for non-members.
RSVP at rsvp@deadlineclub.org.
October book event: Journalist Jere Van Dyk speaks about being a Taliban captive
Journalist and author Jere Van Dyk spent 45 days in a Taliban prison and lived to tell about it. He was taken prisoner by a dozen armed men after he had crossed into the tribal areas of Pakistan hoping to reach the home of a local chieftain by nightfall.
The Deadline Club is proud to have Van Dyk share his harrowing account from his new book, “Captive,” on Thursday, Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. at the Salmagundi Club. Van Dyk, currently a consultant on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and al-Qaeda for CBS News, has recently appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and WNYC to share his experience as a Taliban captive.
Van Dyk lived with the mujahideen while working as a correspondent for The New York Times, as they battled the Soviet Army. His articles in The New York Times, which included a three-part story in the paper’s Sunday magazine, were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He later wrote “In Afghanistan,” a book on his experiences during that journey.
What: Journalist Jere Van Dyk discusses his book, “Captive,” about being imprisoned by the Taliban
When: Thursday, Oct. 14, 2010, 7 p.m.
Where: Salmagundi Club, 467 Fifth Ave., b/t 11th and 12th sts.
Cost: FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. We're expecting a big crowd, so reserve your seat now!
RSVP at rsvp@deadlineclub.org
NEW YORK TIMES WINS BIG AT DEADLINE CLUB AWARDS DINNER
NEW YORK – The New York Times dominated this year’s Deadline Club awards, winning in seven categories, with reporter Charles Duhigg receiving honors in both investigative reporting and public service for his “Toxic Waters” series.
The Gray Lady’s nearest rival in the race for the Rubes was the Associated Press with four awards, including a new award for the best cell-phone news app.
The annual awards dinner drew nearly 200 of the city’s top journalists to the Waldorf-Astoria Monday evening to honor their colleagues. The Deadline Club, one of the nations largest chapters of the Society for Professional Journalists, awarded 30 of its distinctive statuettes for excellence in categories such as investigations to spot news reporting and across media, from print to interactive online graphics.
While the weighty, bronze “Rubes” (designed by none other than Rube Goldberg) reflected the club’s 80-year history, keynote speaker Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, spoke about journalism’s precarious future.
The evolution of journalism, Thomson said, has gone from “Dog Bites Man” to “Man Bites Dog” to finally reach “Byte Dogs Man” in the punishing echo chamber of extremes. The dearth of marginal content on the Internet is skewing the industry’s priorities, he said, adding that “traffic for the sake of traffic” and “purposeless repurposing” are seen as more valuable in some quarters than serious journalism. Still, he noted, “nostalgia is not a strategy.” He urged those in attendance to keep to the ramparts and use “fact-based journalism” to keep the “fiction-based blather” at bay.
Thomson needled The New York Times, which last week sent The Wall Street Journal a cease-and-desist letter over ads for the Journal’s new local news section that seem to mimic a branding campaign recently launched by the Times. Noting that his previous newspaper, The Times of London, claimed the “Times” moniker 50 years before the New York paper existed, Thomson mused: “I’m sure we could find a sympathetic view to our position from some British judge.”
Thomson, who has led the Journal’s efforts to challenge The New York Times in local coverage, further poked his rival by making public that the Journal’s retail sales are up by 13% on weekdays and 18% on Saturdays since the new metro news section’s debut in late April.
New York Post media columnist Keith Kelly, who introduced Thomson, lauded Thomson’s choice as a youth to take a newspaper internship over positions with an oil firm or as an accountant, and praised Thompson’s reasoning – that the journalism job would disappear sooner than others if he didn’t grab it.
After Thomson’s address, he joined Deadline Cdlub president Rebecca Baker in handing out 29 “Rube” statues to the winners. Betsy Ashton, past president of the Deadline Club, kept a brisk pace while recognizing as many as four finalists per category whom judges singled out for mention.
Among the winners were Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari, who won an award for “118 Days in Hell,” his account of his imprisonment in Iran at the hands of the Revolutionary Guard. The judges of the Magazine Feature category specifically cited his courage throughout the ordeal.
To see the complete list of winners, go to http://deadlineclub.org/awards
