Lawn updates memoir, celebrates at Broadcast Committee book party

A crowd of journalists, friends and associates strode into the National Press Club conference rooms on May 21 to celebrate Connie Lawn’s fourth update of You Wake Me Each Morning.

Jeff Mason of Thomson-Reuters and Margaret Talev speaking on behalf of the White House Correspondence Association regaled Lawn with remarks on her role in Washington, D.C. and the White House. Lawn also spoke.

The event was co-sponsored by the NPC's Broadcast Committee.

A longtime Press Club member, Lawn writes about her career as a White House reporter since 1968 and the struggles of her one woman news bureau, Audio Video News. She terms the book a guide to the rigors of independent journalism. It includes accolades for her work -- along with criticisms -- from presidents, ambassadors, press secretaries and, notably, Nelson Mandela.

When asked about the book's title, Lawn said "this is what listeners around the world have said to me for years, as they heard my radio broadcasts in this country and around the world. The first time I heard the phrase was from Sam Lewis, former U.S. ambassador to Israel."

Some listeners have called the voice sexy, authoritative, funny, snobby or sophisticated. Lawn tries to incorporate it all, as she tells the stories that make the news or change history.

Of the many compliments she has received, the most important came from the late Nelson Mandela. The former South African president said he listed to her broadcasts for years while in prison.

"You gave my people hope," Mandela told her during a Washington news conference. "You are not as big as I thought you were!"

In the autobiography, Lawn tells of the struggles of a one-woman news bureau. She recounts such events as the unrest in Washington in 1968; the killing of Sen. Robert Kennedy Of New York (she had one of the last interviews with him); the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where she stayed for six months; a brief kidnapping in Lebanon in 1982, and White House coverage of presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama.

Lawn received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Journalism from the New Zealand National Press Club and the New Zealand Parliament in 2006. In 2012, she was presented the insignia of an Honorary Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit at the command of Queen Elizabeth II.