New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly to donate signed press freedom cartoon for Fourth Estate Award Gala

Advocates of the independent, free press can display their support with an exclusive signed print from renowned cartoonist and writer Liza Donnelly.

Donnelly has generously contributed prints of her illustration commemorating the importance of the free press in democracy, in conjunction with this year’s Fourth Estate Award Gala. The gala will take place on Oct. 20, and tickets are available through Wednesday, Oct. 13. 

The artist’s live digital reporting and cartoons have been featured in The New Yorker, where she has been a staff artist since 1979; on CBS News, NBC, and CNN; and in Forbes, Fusion, Medium, Narrative, Politico, The Daily Beast, Open Salon, The Huffington Post, and Women’s eNews, among others.

The 2021 Fourth Estate Award Gala honoring "NBC Nightly News" and "Dateline NBC" anchor Lester Holt will take place from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 20. The celebration will take place at the National Press Club and online, with Holt joining the event live from New York to accept his award. 

Donnelly has graciously agreed to print and autograph a copy of the illustration for anyone who donates $150 or more during the evening’s festivities. The high-quality signed 5”x7” print would make a unique holiday gift for your favorite journalist or for a proud display in your home or office.

“Liza’s incredible generosity is such a unique, creative gift to the Institute,” said Journalism Institute Executive Director Julie Moos. “That she’s making this piece available for our guests to enjoy in their homes ensures they’ll have a visible reminder to celebrate and defend press freedom any day of the year.”

Club members in the Washington, D.C., area can join the Fourth Estate Award Gala in person for an elegant dinner and black-tie celebration in the ballroom of the Club, where they can watch the virtual program on the big screen while enjoying time with colleagues and friends at tables. Vaccination and masking are required, and on-site rapid testing will be available.

Tickets for the in-person experience are nearly sold out, so if you plan to join in the ballroom, secure your spot now. 

This year’s program will also take place in a virtual ballroom. The virtual space allows guests to “table hop” and mingle with the honorees and friends — old and new — before and after the program, as well as chat throughout the award ceremony. Tickets are available.

Liza Donnelly is a writer and cartoonist with The New Yorker Magazine, where she has provided commentary on culture and politics for over 40 years. As an on-air contributor to CBS News, Donnelly created political cartoons and live-drew cultural and political events. She writes for The New York Times and CNN Opinion pages, The Washington Post, Forbes, Politico, Ms. Magazine, and Medium, where she has a regular column on politics.

A respected voice for women’s rights and free speech, Donnelly delivered a TED talk that has been translated into 40 languages, receiving over 1.4 million views online. She has spoken at the United Nations in New York and Geneva, The New Yorker Festival, numerous TEDxes, universities, NGOs and corporate venues in the US and abroad. Donnelly has been a Cultural Envoy for the U.S. State Department, speaking about current events abroad. Author of 17 books,  her history, Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker's Women Cartoonists 1925-2021, will be published soon with new material and a foreword by David Remnick and Emma Allen.

Donnelly is the innovator of a new form of digital visual journalism, wherein she draws events in real time and shares online. For CBS News, CNN and The New Yorker, she covered the DNC in 2016, and the 2017 Inauguration, White House press conferences, political marches; and she is the first cartoonist to be credentialed to the Academy Awards five years in a row. 

A native Washingtonian, Donnelly is currently based in New York.

For more information, contact Julie Moos at [email protected].