Keith J. Kelly, ‘Media Ink’ Columnist
At NY Post, to Speak at June 19 Lunch

Keith J. Kelly

Maybe the mythic days of “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” are gone, but you wouldn’t know it from the way veteran New York Post media columnist Keith J. Kelley goes about his business.  He’s definitely old school. His mantra is “scoops.” A self-described “hard-nosed, gumshoe reporter,” Kelly’s raison d’etre is to be the first to get word out about anything and everything having to do with the comings and goings of the media scene. And he’ll do what it takes to make that happen. As he once put it: “There’s one thing I get paid for, it’s scoops for The Post.  If you’re gonna give scoops to someone else, you’re taking food off my kids’ table.”  

It’s been that way since he first signed on with The Post some two decades ago. And even though “scoop” may have lost some of yesteryear’s fizz in this new era of diminished print competition and digitally driven, blink-of-an-eye news cycles, Kelly remains on the prowl and, arguably, busier than ever, in light of the proliferation of Web-based media news feeds and the relentless cascade of stories spilling from an industry still in the throes of tumultuous change.  Small wonder his “Media Ink” column continues to hold sway as the go-to read for those eager to stay in the know.

Now you’ll have the pleasure of hearing directly from the media maven himself, about his adventures — and misadventures too, given the potential pitfalls of doing what he does — and also get his take on what he sees in store for the news publishing biz, when Kelly joins us as speaker at the Silurian Press Club’s June 19 lunch, the last before the summer break.

A graduate of SUNY in Oneonta, N.Y., where he earned his bachelor’s degree in literature, Kelly began his journalism career as editorial director of Magazine Week in 1988. Four years later he moved on to Cowles Business Media as editor of Folio: First Day, a newsletter about the publishing industry. In 1994, he was named a senior editor at Advertising Age. He next spent a year at the New York Daily News, before joining The Post in 1998 to cover the media beat.

There’s another aspect worth mentioning, namely his role as the co-organizer of a cadre of notable New York namesakes (e.g., former police commissioner Ray Kelly; former Time magazine managing editor Jim Kelly) who have been gathering for Christmas lunch since 2000. Playfully dubbed “The Kelly Gang “ by former Post colleague Steve Dunleavy when he spotted the gaggle at table one day, the name stuck and the group has since evolved into a charitable organization that funds a wide spectrum of worthy causes.  

All in all, it promises to be a fitting end to a most successful Silurian season.  Hope to see you there.

The date:   Wednesday, June 19
The time:   Noon
The place: The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South                            

To attend, reservations are necessary. We are using Eventbrite to handle our luncheon reservations. There is no extra charge for this unless you choose to pay in advance for your ticket with a credit card. All you need to do is click the link and follow the directions: 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/keith-kelly-pulls-back-the-curtain-on-medialand-today-tickets-62639796317

You will then receive an email confirmation.

You may also reserve by calling the Silurians’ reservation line at 212-532-0887. Please spell your name clearly and include a contact number or email address. Lunch prices are $55 for members, $65 for guests, payable at the door by credit card, check or cash (exact change, please). And you’re bringing a guest, make sure to tell us your guest’s name.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: Because we must give the National Arts Club a final attendance tally two days before the luncheon, we cannot accept cancellations after noon on Monday, June 17. If you fail to cancel your reservation by then and turn out to be a no-show, you will nevertheless be billed for the lunch because the NAC will bill us for it. So please make your reservation, assure yourself a seat and join us for what promises to be an extra-special event.

Despite Budget Woes, Investigative Reporting
Sets the Pace at Silurians Awards Dinner

This one’s for the investigators.

           Today’s press corps, faced with crippling budget cuts that have stripped its ranks of reporters and editors at all forms of major media, and forced to deal with determined and dangerous opposition from governments here and abroad that increasingly puts lives, as well as livelihoods, on the line, continues to produce some of the best and most courageous coverage in the long annals of journalism. For almost three-quarters of a century, the Silurians Press Club (formerly known as the Society of the Silurians) has been honoring the men and women whose work honors all of us. The Silurians Excellence in Journalism Awards Dinner, a tradition that began in 1945, continued on May 15, when the outstanding stories and images of 2018 were applauded by an audience of close to 100 members and guests at the National Arts Club in New York.

           For the first time, the format of the Awards Dinner included two key changes. The presentation of the Peter Kihss Award, usually a major component of the evening, was instead shifted to the April lunch, when it was given to Rich Lamb of WCBS Newsradio. An addition to the Awards Dinner was a keynote speaker: Debby Krenek, publisher of the Newsday Media Group and former editor-in-chief of two of New York’s major daily newspapers, Newsday and the New York Daily News. Krenek’s comments, touching on the problems affecting the media’s bottom line but failing to keep it from doing outstanding work, set the tone for the evening.

          The awards presentation were made by Silurian president David A. Andelman and two former presidents: Betsy Ashton and Mort Sheinman.

           The New York Times, Newsday and The Record/NorthJersey.com were big winners in this year’s competition, with demonstrations of investigative reporting that took time, money and guts. Newsday, for example, captured the President’s Choice Medallion for its extraordinary investigation that exposed a complex web of corruption between politicians and the business, law enforcement and legal communities of Long Island. For more than four years, a battalion of Newsday reporters and researchers conducted hundreds of interviews, pored over thousands of government documents and developed inside sources, the result of which was “Pathway To Power,” a special 48-page, 30,000-word Sunday supplement published in March 2018.

           The central figure in the story was Gary Melius, a onetime street hoodlum who became the owner of Long Island’s unofficial political clubhouse, a grand, Gatsbyesque estate in Huntington called Oheka Castle. Along with hosting celebrity weddings or providing the background for music videos by rock stars, Oheka became the place where high-ranking public officials, political leaders and law enforcement brass huddled over food and drink, played poker, anointed and cross-endorsed candidates and otherwise sliced up the public pie.

           Other winning entries also featured outstanding investigative work, several of them putting a hot light on the Trump business empire.

           The New York Times investigative team of David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner won the Medallion for Investigative Reporting by telling the complex story of the legally dubious financial history of the Trump family business. It demonstrated that Trump received today’s equivalent of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire and that much of it came from questionable tax schemes during the 1990s, including outright fraud.

           On their way to winning  the Medallion for Radio News Reporting, WNYC Radio and ProPublica combined their staffs to produce “Trump Inc.,” a year-long series of podcasts that uncovered wrongdoing and conflicts of interest in the Trump business empire.

           The Associated Press Trump Business Team dug deeply into the business activities of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who continue to serve as White House advisers without divesting their extensive financial holdings, with hard-hitting investigative reporting that exposed glaring conflicts of interest. For their reporting, the AP team won a Merit Award for Business and Financial Reporting.

           The exhaustive research work of James O’Neill, Scott Fallon and photojournalist Chris Padota of The Record/NorthJersey.com resulted in “Toxic Secrets: Pollution, Evasion and Fear in New Jersey,” which won the Medallion for Environmental Reporting. The four-part series uncovered how DuPont downplayed the dire health risks posed by cancer-causing groundwater contamination at its now closed munitions manufacturing plant in Pompton Lakes, N.J.

           Newsday reporter Will Van Sant’s “Hands to the Neck” exposé won for Public Service Reporting. It took Van Sant a year to conduct deep research, collecting documents, developing sources and using old fashioned shoe leather to get the story. It revealed scores of non-fatal strangulation attacks in state-run or state-supervised hospital and other medical facilities. Van Sant’s reporting detailed how Patricia Gunning, the former special prosecutor and inspector general at the New York State Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs, was stymied in her attempt to study and combat the phenomenon, which often involved employees acting against vulnerable individuals under state care. Van Sant’s piece spurred calls for Congressional action.

          Kevin Armstrong won for Sports Reporting for taking a close look at an FBI probe into the way businessmen and coaches schemed to funnel six-figure payments from sneaker companies to the families of star high school basketball players. When Armstrong wrote it, he was working in the sports department of the New York Daily News. When the News let half its editorial staff go in 2018, Armstrong was among the casualties. But he bounced back and now covers the Mets for The New York Times.

           The Medallion for Sports Photography went to J. Conrad Williams Jr. of Newsday for his emotion-filled series of pictures spotlighting an irate Serena Williams confronting chair umpire Carlos Ramos  after some controversial calls in the finals of the U.S. Tennis Open that likely cost her the title.

           Strong investigative and research skills were also at work at the Norwood News, a community weekly that covers the Northwest Bronx. The paper’s Housing Matters series, written by editor David Cruz, won a Merit Award for Feature Writing when it found that the city’s plans for creating affordable housing may be beyond the means of many Bronx residents.

          In the Reporting on Minority Issues category, Christine Veiga and Samuel Park of Chalkbeat, a non-profit editorial website covering education, won the Medallion for a series of articles on community pushback against the proposed integration of middle schools on New York’s Upper West Side.

           Extraordinary reporting and writing were abundant.

          In “The Case of Jane Doe Ponytail,” Dan Barry and Jeffrey Singer of The New York Times won the Medallion for Feature Reporting by telling the tragic life-and-death story of a young Chinese woman caught up in the illicit massage/prostitution trade that was a big business along one street in the Chinatown area of Flushing, Queens.

          Jim Dwyer of The New York Times won the Medallion for Commentary by bringing the lives of everyday, working New Yorkers to life in his columns, digging deep to uncover wrongdoing that sent innocent men and women to prison.      

           The New York Times garnered five Medallion and three Merit Awards; Newsday won three Medallions and five Merit Awards and The Record/NorthJersey.com won four Medallions. 

For a full list of the 2019 Excellence in Journalism Award winners, Click here: