Journalism Matters Because Of These People

by Bob Meyers 0 comments

Last Tuesday night at the NPF Awards Dinner, I spoke about “why journalism matters,” the title of a contest we were running (it’s closed now).

In the organizing of my remarks, I dropped something that is very important to the success of NPF, and that is the work of our staff. Traditional adjectives like “hard-working” and “dedicated” don’t work because those words don’t measure up to what these five people do. The word that works best is – care .

They care about the people who attend our programs, they care about the people who can’t attend them, they worry about the quality of the speakers, they worry about the food (vegan? Any allergies?). You get the idea.

I made a mistake in not mentioning them the other night, so let me make amends now:

Linda Streitfeld is our director of programs, in charge of content for the 50 days of programming we put on a year. She has real insight into people and issues and does impressive research into every topic we undertake.

Kerry Buker is the foundation’s director of operations, and the person who made the dinner such an organizational success Tuesday night.

Maha Masud is our programs assistant and works closest with Linda. She has a real grasp on the needs of journalists.

Ana Zovko is our administrative assistant who works on programs, especially international programs, and assist me with special projects.

Daric Snyder is our digital media manager, and plays a very important role in NPF’s growing digital effort.

You can learn more about them on our website, http://nationalpress.org/about/our-staff/. The place really wouldn’t function without them.