Tim Young: Candidate for Club president

Most years, candidates for the elected NPC offices run unopposed. They make perfunctory statements to members, making vague promises about all the great things they’re going to do. Then, every year---nothing happens.

This year is different. This year, there's a choice. That’s why it’s very important for NPC members to vote.

For half a decade, the "leadership" of the NPC has been handed from one person to another. People put in time on committees and sat through countless hours of meetings. They climbed the ladder, quietly taking turns in the different offices. Usually, these legacy candidates ran unopposed, and eventually everyone else would step out of the way so they could have a turn being President.

That's what the legacy candidates assumed would happen this year, too. But passing the gavel--and the buck--is no way to lead an important club. It's no way to lead, period. It’s why our membership has stagnated---why we haven’t kept pace with changing technology and journalism business models---and why the NPC’s prestige and relevance
has dwindled. It's why year after year they suggest that they'll provide more value for members, including non-residents, and hardly anything happens.

(Check out the last year’s NPC election page, http://press.org/candidates. Six out of seven offices, including President, ran unopposed.)

I’m Tim Young. I‘m running for NPC President, I’m a freelance journalist, and I’m also Chairman of the Young Members Committee. (If you’re not familiar, under my leadership, Young Members has become one of the most active committees at the NPC. We’ve held huge events, and partnered with an Internet job site, DCJobs.com, to build journalism
job-searching tools for our members.)

I’m running because I think the Club should truly live up to its name and purpose, it’s supposed to be the NATIONAL Press Club, the World’s Leading Professional Organization for Journalists. It should provide more value to ALL journalists everywhere.

I'm running with a great group of people under the name "Let's Press Ahead." We are asking for your vote to bring new ideas and passion to the NPC. (To Learn More, go to www.letspressahead.com.)