Painter's Pet Project Promotes #JournalismMatters

My 12-year-old rescue dog Lily has a new claim to fame. Her portrait has been painted by self-described "outsider artist" Erika Bleiberg, and the likeness is striking.

Bleiberg has been painting portraits of journalists' pets for free for several years as a way to thank them for their work, posting on social media with the hashtag #JournalismMatters. A free press, she says, is needed to have a foundation of checks and balances. She invites National Press Club members to reach out to her if they would like to commission a pet portrait. 

Bleiberg's mother was a survivor of the Holocaust so she's conscious of the dangers of propaganda. "It terrifies me what the reality would be" were it not for the work of the Fourth Estate, she said.

Bleiberg's father Alvin was an investigative journalist and documentary film producer. Drawn to her father's work from a young age, Bleiberg says she was encouraged to tag along and assist him. She shadowed him as he covered the Watergate hearings.

In the mid-1970s, Bleiberg accompanied her father to a reception at the National Press Club. At that event, she remembers meeting his PBS colleagues Robin MacNeil and Jim Lehrer and even his former CBS colleague Walter Cronkite.

"They were -— and are — my American heroes, and I'm grateful for the lessons I learned about the important role journalism plays in our democracy," Bleiberg said. "We have to keep beating the drum, and that's what my little project is all about."

National Press Club members who would like to have portraits made of their pets are welcome to reach out to Bleiberg at [email protected].