Combination of three NPC committees into new Headliners team going successfully

The combination of the National Press Club’s former Newsmakers, Speakers, and Book & Author Committees into a new Headliners Team this year is going successfully, according to Club President Jeff Ballou.

Citing speakers ranging from the serious, like Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, to the entertaining, like ballet dancer Misty Copeland, Ballou said the reorganization was necessary in light of the past few years’ increased competition for D.C. area talks.

“When the speakers series started in the early years of the Club, we were the only act in town. That’s no longer the case,” Ballou told the Wire. “We’re now in a scenario with the Newseum, Politico -- even the area think tanks have stepped up their game."

Ballou cited a need to refocus the Club’s energies on speakers who are both newsworthy themselves and can make news while at the Club, pointing to the unlikely example of celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson in January. “As he talked about his new cookbook and themes that went into it, he made a joke about a day without immigrants -- which actually came about within two weeks!” Ballou said. “So he made news even in the venue of a cooking and wine dinner.”

Other committees are combining, or at least coordinating, in the aim of producing a more streamlined and unified Club, Ballou said.

“We sunsetted Travel and moved their functions to the Events team. It’s about making sure the Young Members Committee and the Owls are working together. Making sure that Press Freedom works closely with other teams across the Club, so when you have a scenario like what happened with John Donnelly, you’re having discussions.”

(Donnelly, chairman of the Club’s Press Freedom Team and reporter for CQ Roll Call, was pinned against the wall by guards at the FCC guards this week while trying to report on the commission’s meeting.)

Ballou, news editor at the Al Jazeera Media Network, has been a Club member since 1992 and took over the presidency in January.

As for why he changed the word ‘committee’ to ‘team’? “Because committee sounded too much like damn work,” Ballou said. “Teamwork inspires a sense of pulling together to work towards one goal. Committee is like the movie ‘Office Space.’”