McCarren strengthened Club's finances, press freedom mission

When Bill McCarren founded a startup, U.S. Newswire, in 1986, he moved one floor below a lively social club he saw as a gathering ground for connecting Washington policy-making with the journalists who make the news happen.

He joined his upstairs neighbor, the National Press Club, as a member that year. More than three decades later, he will retire after serving the last 16 years as first the Club’s general manager and then as executive director, a tenure marked by the Club’s increasing financial strength and wider reach on press freedom issues.

The Club will host a farewell for McCarren at 7 p.m. Friday, June 2, in the Reliable Source.

McCarren said he was first drawn to the Club as a place where he could build a professional network for U.S. Newswire, where he was CEO.

“I had to have some kind of relationship with the media all across town,” McCarren said while sitting in the Club’s library, as multiple events proceeded in the Club’s 13th-floor gathering spaces. “This was a super-easy place for me to do that.”

He went from taking part in Club activities to running them as its top executive when he was hired as general manager in 2007.

Past presidents said McCarren’s business acumen, combined with his deep understanding of journalism, helped to guide the Club through an economic recession, the rise of social media and disinformation, the gutting of local newsrooms, increasing threats to press freedom and democracy around the world, and, finally, a global pandemic.

The Club was vibrant, with a busy bar and headline-grabbing luncheons when McCarren took the helm. That year, the Club held about 70 luncheon speakers and even hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by video link, said Jerry Zremski, Club president in 2007 and a longtime Washington reporter for The Buffalo News.

But the Club had no cash reserves, carried a high debt, and operated on an unprofitable business model. The Club, forced to take out loans to pay its bills, was “one financial disaster away from being in terribly dire straits,” Zremski said.

The Club board appointed McCarren executive director in 2010. He oversaw a long-term financial overhaul that involved selling artwork and refocusing the Club on higher-margin activities.

He grew the Broadcast Operations Center, bolstered catering operations, smoothed out tax issues, and “made things more efficient and professional on the business side,” said Donna Leinwand Leger, who served as Club president in 2009 and is now president and founder of DC Media Strategies LLC.

“He really got our financial ship in order,” Leinwand Leger said. “Nothing ruffled Bill’s feathers.”

As of the end of May, the Club had about $18 million in cash and investment reserves and no debt, McCarren said. Membership rolls stood at about 2,700 people.

McCarren’s work to build up financial reserves paid dividends in bolstering its position as a leading voice for press freedom.

He positioned the Club to successfully secure the 2016 release of Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post journalist held captive in Iran. Rezaian’s case bolstered the Club’s approach in other campaigns, such as the push to free Austin Tice, a journalist held in Syria since 2012, and Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter captured in Russia this year.

“Bill showed such great resolve on press freedom issues, but without his work to stabilize the financial operations, none of the Club’s great work is possible,” said John Hughes, a Bloomberg Law editor who spent a decade on the Club board and was president in 2015.

“Our strengths as journalists are writing and reporting–most of us didn’t go to business school,” Hughes said. “But by the time we ended our Press Club service we knew a lot, thanks to Bill.”

The Club was prepared to confront the final major test of his time as executive director: the COVID-19 pandemic.

McCarren helped to bring people back to the Club as soon as possible with masking and vaccination guidelines that closely followed public health guidelines, said Lisa Matthews, the Club’s president in 2021 and planning editor for The Associated Press.

“We really could not have made it through the pandemic without Bill, in terms of the health issues and the financial considerations we had to work through,” Matthews said. “We were reworking entire budgets and plans that included people’s livelihoods.”

Looking ahead, McCarren said he wanted to see the Club continue to evolve.

It should convene difficult conversations on a sustainable business model for news and how to report on the tenuous state of democracy, he said. The Club should also consider whether to relax some long-standing practices — perhaps adding more grab-and-go food options, allowing less dressy attire, improving its WiFi and technology — to attract a younger generation to the Club, he said.

“These are big issues that I’d like to see the Club figuring out how to use its resources to address,” he said. “I think there’s an awful lot of good we can do.”