Enjoy a journey into the past with audio recordings and transcripts of the institution’s annual conventions. For this 1997 convention in Washington, D.C., following the Pledge of Allegiance, parliamentary expert and toastmaster extraordinaire Bob Leiman—IPA’s then-president—kicked off the evening with a summary of the lyceum’s roots. (Its leaders have included the likes of Daniel Webster, Josiah Holbrook, Ralph Bingham and Edwin Barker, Drew Pearson, Dan Tyler Moore, and Jack Anderson.)Bob presented the “Lowell Thomas Broadcast Journalism Award” to Christiane Amanpour, of CNN and CBS “60 Minutes.” Christiane’s topics included her experiences covering the war in Bosnia and how critical the role of the press was in waking the world up to the war’s genocide and crimes against humanity. “It still amazes me,” she said, “that countries today were able to just stand back and watch and not really do anything until we journalists really sort of shoved it in their faces.”During the Q&A, an attendee told Christiane that “I think you have developed a lot of interest for young people in the rest of the world.” A second attendee said she hoped that a tape is being made (it was!) of Christiane’s presentation. “I want to get that and put it in some of the schools in the [Houston] district where I work,” said the audience member. “I think if our children can look on and get all contaminated with what's happening on Mars, they need to get excited about what can happen among people of different mixes of life.”Next up: Jack Anderson, the legendary journalist and IPA chairman, who presented Richard Behar with the Jack Anderson Award for “top investigative reporter of the year” for a lengthy exposé in Fortune magazine about New York City’s mobbed-up garbage-carting industry. The audience laughed when Behar, upon accepting the award, exclaimed “Wow, the mafia has been very good for me.” He continued: “Unfortunately, the mafia has not been good for the citizens of New York. For 40 years, a mob cartel controlled the commercial garbage industry. Now you might say, ‘Ahh, it's garbage. Who really cares?’ And in fact, nobody did.” Behar’s in-depth reporting helped harm the mafia’s business at a time when law enforcement was rooting out the criminals. Next, Jack and his writing partner, Doug Cohn, made a series of predictions, based on trends, intelligence reports and interviews with current and former government officials. Subjects included China, the stock market and the war on drugs. “Instead of giving my annual speech here tonight, I'm going to introduce a new technique, gonna introduce a new form of reporting,” said Jack. “This is the first time we have tried it. It may not work too well. Still got a lot of rough spots… We have decided as we hurtle toward the 21st century that the interest in the future is heightening, and we have looked for ways to cover the future. You might call it ‘anticipatory journalism.’”For additional news releases, visit Expert Click, the expert referral site forjournalists https://www.expertclick.com

Genre

Business