Moving the future location of the Albany Convention Center closer to Empire State Plaza and the Capitol, along with other state and local governmental sites like the Court of Appeals and City Hall, creates an opportunity to establish an Albany Press Club, similar to the National Press Club.
With convention, meeting and hotel facilities, the abundance of governmental institutions, and members of the Legislative Correspondents Association on the third floor of the Capitol, we should be able to capitalize on being a "place where news happens," not only within the state but nationally and internationally.
The National Press Club is a more than century-old private club for journalists and communications professionals. It hosts more than 250,000 visitors at more than 2,000 events, often beamed or reported to audiences near and far in print, on the air and online. It has two restaurants, private meeting spaces and a professional staff for coordinating banquets, receptions, news conferences, meetings, symposiums, webcasts and satellite media.
Albany is not the world-class center of power that Washington is, but the state's governor usually has eyes on the presidency, and its primary city of New York, only two-and-a-half hours from Albany and next door by satellite, is a world-class city. The state's agriculture industry, emerging tech research, financial sector, educational and health resources, rivers and other water bodies, parks including the vast Adirondack Park, and innovative state heritage areas, arts, sports and culture and so many other special features provide the grist for newsmaking and policy analysis. With the right setting and a forum and support, including convention facilities, it would enliven, enrich and intellectually benefit our capital city.
The National Press Club has a split mission. On the one hand it is "a social and business organization dedicated to supporting the ongoing improvement of the profession of journalism." In part, this is done by providing "an ideal facility for news coverage."
When I was working for a corporate environmental consulting firm, we booked meeting space at the National Press Club for a state-of-the-art presentation on the value of social responsibility for corporations. While the event was not reported in the Washington Post or on the nightly news, it attracted an audience of about 50 opinion and policymakers, who absorbed the ideas we offered in our presentations.
The National Press Club is also where "today's journalists train to become the next generation of storytellers, with writers and editors using cutting-edge platforms and techniques still being fully imagined."
At a time when journalism is in great transition, it is a good time to integrate journalists and news makers with the journalism and communications educators at the institutions of higher education in Albany and its environs.
We should also have something similar to the The National Press Club Journalism Institute, which provides classes, training, other professional development activities to journalists in transition, as well as to young journalists and students.
Albany has much more potential to be an interesting newsmaking city than many people realize. We need to dig deeper than we usually do to find the roots of what can make it interesting and how this can be nurtured and crafted into facilities like an Albany Press Club that can allow Albany to flourish as a news source.
Paul M. Bray's email is secsunday@aol.com
