2018 Dateline Awards Dinner

Please join us in honoring longtime Associated Press editor Sonya Ross, NBC4/WAMU reporter Tom Sherwood, and NPR correspondent Robert Siegel as they are inducted as members of our Hall of Fame.

The criterion for membership in the Hall of Fame is simply this: strong journalism over at least 25 years in Washington.

	Sonya Ross (@sonyagal) has been with the Associated Press since landing an internship in 1986. She was a general assignment reporter and then a legislative reporter in Atlanta before coming to Washington in 1992 as AP’s Urban Affairs Reporter. She later spent six years as an AP White House Reporter during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. She became World Services Editor in 2002 and News Editor – Regionals in 2004. Five years later, Ross took her present job as the wire service’s Race & Ethnicity Editor.
	Tom Sherwood (@tomsherwood), now a political analyst at WAMU and contributing writer for Washington City Paper, spent 28 years covering politics in the National Capital for NBC’s Channel 4. During his first-week on that job, then-Mayor Marion Berry was arrested in a drug sting. Since then, he has covered the successes and scandals of all five of the city’s mayors. As Washingtonian magazine once said, “Mayors come and go; Sherwood stays.” Before NBC4, Sherwood spent 15 years as a Washington Post political reporter.
	Robert Siegel (@RSiegel47) retired from National Public Radio in January after 41 years at the network, most of them as co-host of the renowned afternoon broadcast “All Things Considered.” Siegel started his career as a Top-40 disc jockey (using the name Bob Charles). Soon, however, he was reporting news for Columbia University’s WKCR and later for WRVR in New York. Joining NPR in 1976, he became the new network’s first overseas staffer, in London, and later took the job of news and information director. In 1987, Siegel returned to the air, on ATC.

The three inductees will speak at the chapter’s annual Dateline Awards dinner, where SPJ’s D.C. Pro Chapter will also present its annual Dateline Awards for excellence in local journalism. The D.C. chapter’s 2018 Distinguished Service Award will be presented to Gene Policinski, President of The Newseum Institute and its First Amendment Center. Policinski also will speak.

Gene Policinski (@genefac) oversees all programs of the Newseum Institute and is a regular writer of articles and commentary concerning press freedom. One of the founding editors of USA Today, he rose through several positions at the paper before becoming Special Assistant to the late Al Neuharth, USA Today chairman and President/CEO of the Freedom Forum. Following the establishment of the Newseum, Policinski became President and COO of the Newseum Institute and First Amendment Center.

 June 12, 2018
Cocktails 6 p.m.
Dinner and Awards 7 p.m.
National Press Club
529 14th St NW
Washington, DC 20045, USA

JUST ADDED: At the dinner, we’ll be raffling off a pair of tickets to the Washington Nationals vs. the Atlanta Braves game
in D.C. on Friday, July 20, 7:05 p.m. for $1 per chance. The seats are located just under the press box at Nats Park.
AND all raffle dollars will go to the SDX Foundation of Washington’s journalism scholarship fund.

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Tickets