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The 300 people who attended Friday's Fourth Estate Award dinner for Christiane Amanpour of CNN knew they were going to see one of the world's great journalists receive the National Press Club's highest honor – but they didn't know they were going to see Madeleine Albright do stand-up comedy.
The former secretary of state stole the show at the dinner, regaling the "elites" in the audience and noting that the National Press Club must be anti-American – because it chose to call itself the National Press Club rather than the American Press Club.
That was just one of countless memorable moments at the dinner, which also featured laugh-a-second roasts by Wolf Blitzer of CNN and Richard Cohen of The Washington Post and a video tribute from broadcasting legend Barbara Walters.
Despite all the hilarity, the purpose of the occasion could have not been more serious. NPC President Sylvia Smith said the Club chose Amanpour because of the example she had set and the ground she had broken during her 25 years at CNN.
"Throughout her career, Christiane has put her life on the line time and again to get the story," Smith said. "What’s more, she’s shattered a glass ceiling. She paved the way for any brave young woman who might have the passion to travel to the world’s danger zones and the talent to bring the stories found there into living rooms worldwide."
For the first time, the dinner served as a fundraiser for the Club's Eric Friedheim National Journalism Library. Thanks to generous donations from CNN, Aviva, Toyota, Harris Corp. and the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, the dinner raised nearly $50,000, putting the library on a much more stable financial footing.
Amanpour is the thirty-sixth recipient of the Fourth Estate Award. She is the fourth female honoree and one of the youngest ever to receive the award. Previous Fourth Estate winners include Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, David Brinkley, Brian Lamb, Helen Thomas and most recently Paul Steiger of the Wall Street Journal.
Amanpour joined CNN in 1983 and worked her way up to correspondent first in CNN’s New York bureau before becoming a foreign correspondent in 1990. Her first major assignment was the Gulf War, and she has since covered wars, famine, genocide and natural disasters around the globe. She has secured exclusive interviews with world leaders, including Iranian Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as the Presidents of Sudan and Syria. After 9/11 she was the first foreign correspondent to interview British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Her work has won a TV Academy Award, eight News and Documentary Emmys, three George Foster Peabody Awards, two George Polk Awards, three DuPont-Columbia Awards, Courage in Journalism Award and many other accolades. In 2007, Amanpour received a Commander in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE), from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for her "highly distinguished, innovative contribution" to the field of journalism. The City of Sarajevo named her an Honorary Citizen for her "personal contribution to spreading the truth" during the Bosnia war from 1992 to 1995.
Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit the Eric Friedheim National Journalism Library at the National Press Club, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing timely, relevant and accurate information to journalists and media specialists.
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