NPC Members Among Washingtonian's DC Power Players

Vanity Fair national editor Todd Purdum and Chicago Times columnist-bureau chief Lynn Sweet are among Washingtonian magazine's 50 best and most influential DC-based journalists of 2009.

The publication's June issue carries thumbnail sketches of the two National Press Club members. The issue is on sale now.

Here's what Washingtonian says of Purdum: "President Clinton may have called him 'sleazy,' 'slimy,' and a 'scumbag' after a particularly cutting piece last year, but most others would agree that Purdum writes what everyone is thinking."

Washingtonian writes of Sweet: "It would be hard to find a reporter who works harder than Sweet, a one-woman multimedia newsroom who often seems to out produce whole teams of correspondents."

Purdum and Sweet aren't the only Club members who get their props in the piece by Washingtonian's executive editor Garrett M. Graff.

In addition to the top 50, the magazine puts Betsy Fischer, NPC member and executive producer of NBC's "Meet the Press" on its list of Movers and Shakers Behind the Scene. The publication calls Fischer the "power player" behind the iconic public affairs show.

Her fellow Club colleagues, Gordon Peterson of ABC affiliate WJLA-TV, and Bob Schieffer of CBS, are among the 12 broadcasters Washingtonian rates as Anchors Strong and Steady. The publication called Peterson, Schieffer and 10 others the "anchors we trust to give it to us straight."

The magazine does a roundup every four years of Washington-based journalists it considers top notch. The first Top 50 list appeared in 1973.