Former NPC president praised by niece, Washington Post

Former National Press Club President Judy Grande received praise first from her niece, pop singer Ariana Grande, and then from her former colleagues at the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Washington Bureau in the Washington Post’s Reliable Source column on June 8.

Ariana tweeted about Judy as she derided “a culture that focuses on her dating life instead of her music and identifies her in terms of her relationships,” wrote Emily Heil. “The singer noted that she came from a ‘long bloodline of female activists,’ including her Aunt Judy, who the singer boasted was the first Italian-American female president of the National Press Club.”

“I think she would have been proud of me for speaking up about something that has been bothering me personally for so long,” tweeted Ariana.

Judy is the sister of Ariana’s mother and a longtime Washington reporter who died of breast cancer in 2008 at the age of 58. She was elected president of the Press Club in 1990.