Silurians Press Club

Celebrating Excellence in Journalism Since 1924

Barry on Breslin

Edit Jimmy Breslin?

Esteemed New York Times reporter and columnist Dan Barry talks about his "labor of love" in editing Breslin: Essential Writings, published by the prestigious Library of America.

By Mel Laytner


Dan Barry remembers his father tossing the newspaper at him every morning with the same command: “Read Breslin.”


For a young Barry, Jimmy Breslin’s voice was raw, immediate, and transformative. “There was something about reading him that felt almost forbidden," Barry said. "He was saying things you almost thought weren’t permitted to be said.”


Barry was speaking at the Silurians Press Club’s luncheon on Sept. 24 about his new book, Breslin: Essential Writings, a collection of the late columnist’s best work.


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Khushali Haji Wins Dennis Duggan Scholarship To CUNY Graduate School of Journalism

By David A. Andelman


When Khushali Haji first arrived in New York City from her native Ahmedabad, India, to study journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, she confesses she was lost.

"Far from the lifelong relationships and routes that I'd left behind, I felt everyone in the city sort of knew what they were doing," she said to a luncheon meeting of the Silurian Press Club where she received the coveted Dennis Duggan journalism scholarship. "They walked in confident strides and more or less knew what was going on for them. Even small things like making small talk, mispronouncing words was nerve-racking for me from the beginning."

That didn't last long. 
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Mob murders. Crooked politicos. Sex scandals.

The misdeeds of the boldface names...

The New York Post has covered them all and wrapped them up in pithy prose and memorable headlines.


And let’s not forget the right-wing influence of Rupert Murdoch, who bought the paper—the country’s oldest continuously published daily—in 1977.

Our Nov. 20 program is a delicious deep dive into Paper of Wreckage: An Oral History of The New York Post, 1976-2024 by Susan Mulcahy and Frank DiGiacomo. Many Silurians and other high-profile journalists are Post alumni, including past-president Joe Berger and board member Myron Rushetzky.

Mulcahy, a fellow Silurian, worked at the Post’s notorious gossip column Page Six from 1978 to 1985, including three years as editor, before launching a similar feature in New York Newsday, writing for the New Yorker and The New York Times and publishing three previous books. 

DiGiacomo freelanced at Page Six in the 1980s and became an editor there from 1991 to 1993. He has worked as writer or editor for Vanity Fair, Hollywood Reporter and the Daily News. He is now an executive editor at Billboard.

They will be interviewed by Silurian Sheryl McCarthy, who interviews authors and others on her weekly talk show, “One to One,” on CUNY-TV. She is currently a Distinguished Lecturer in journalism at Queens College of the City University of New York. She has never worked at the New York Post.

Recent Guests/Speakers

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SPECIAL EVENT at the 911 Memorial Museum -October 30

"The Next Day:

  Front Page News on September 12"

On September 12th, 2001, New York’s local papers managed to publish despite disrupted communications, destroyed offices, and destruction in lower Manhattan. To go behind the scenes of reporting and writing the iconic 9/11 cover stories, Museum Director Clifford Chanin, is joined by Jim Pensiero, former Deputy Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal, Heidi Evans, former reporter at the Daily News, and Paul Moses, former City Editor and City Hall Bureau Chief at Newsday.


Click to Register at the Museum

The 2024 Medallion and Merit Awards winners

COMPLETE AWARDS LIST

Aileen Jacobson

Aileen Jacobson Elected President, Fran Carpentier First Vice President


By Ben Patrusky


Aileen Jacobson, who covered the arts and personal finance for three decades at Newsday and has freelanced for the New York Times and other publications for the past 16 years, was elected the 74th president of the Silurians Press Club, heading the 2024 – 2025 slate of officers and board of governors.


For the past two years, in her role as Vice President, Jacobson served as editor of the Silurian News. Assuming the editorship is Fran Carpentier, a 30-year veteran of health and lifestyle journalism, the newly elected First Vice President. Rounding out the officer roster are Carol Lawson, who continues as Secretary, and Karen Bedrosian-Richardson, who remains as Treasurer.


Jacobson succeeds Joseph Berger, who during his two-year tenure as president presided over monthly lunches that featured an outstanding array of speakers. They included: Paul Steiger, founding editor of ProPublica, together with editor-in-chief Steve Engelberg; best-selling New Yorker writer Ken Auletta; Jelani Cobb, Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism; longtime Newsday investigative reporter and author Tom Maier; Brooke Kroeger, author of “Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism”; New York Times White house correspondent Maggie Haberman; Joe Kahn, executive editor of the New York Times; and most recently, New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, winner of the 2024 Peter Khiss Award.


A graduate of Harvard and the Columbia School of Journalism, Jacobson began covering the arts and other topics in the early 1970s as a staff writer for the Washington Post’s Sunday magazine. In 1974, Jacobson joined Newsday, where she remained until 2008, reporting on news, arts, books and magazines, reviewing theater, and writing about personal finance. She is the author of “Women in Charge: Dilemmas of Women in Authority” and co-author of “The Consumer Reports Money Book.”

Fran Carpentier spent most of her career as senior editor at Parade, the national Sunday newspaper, which during her tenure was distributed to 35 million homes every week, reaching more than 70 million readers coast to coast. Carpentier conceived, edited and wrote articles for Parade on a wide range of topics, including health, personal finance and food, often working in collaboration with such notable contributors as Gloria Steinem, Gail Sheehy and Bill Moyers. She also served as web producer and editor-at-large for the health, lifestyle and food channels at Parade.com.


Two longstanding governors — Myron Kandel and Allan Dodds Frank – both former presidents, twice in Kandel’s case – are stepping down from the board. To honor them for their invaluable contributions, and to continue to benefit from their keen knowledge and wise counsel, the board deemed fit to elect them board members emeriti. In their emeritus capacity, each is welcome to join in all board deliberations as they wish, sans vote. Emeritus status was also conferred upon another former president, Mort Scheinman, in acknowledgment of his many years of exceptional board service

Fran Carpentier

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