January is membership renewal month. Dues are the same for 2012 as for 2011. New members who joined late in 2011 will receive 2012 membership cards in the dues letter that will soon be sent to all members.

Also described in the letter: an optional membership tier that will permit participating members to use the Players Club in Gramercy Park as if they were members of that storied organization. The Players is housed in a landmark Gramercy Park mansion and offers a full range of social club amenities such as a bar, grill, restaurant, library and reading rooms in a genteel and historic setting. Privileges at more than 30 reciprocal clubs such as the Friar's, Explorers and Salamagundi clubs in New York and the Garrick, Reform and Saville clubs in London are included.

If enough Press Club members express interest in the new tier, arrangements will be made to institute the new membership category early in the new year.

Click to renew dues by credit card.

Entries open for the 2012 New York Press Club Awards for Journalism on Monday, January 30th and close on Monday, April 9th.

We're once again offering a discounted entry fee during the first month of entries to encourage prompt submissions. Members of the Press Club are able to take advantage of the discounted rate throughout the call-for-entries period.

An enduring tradition in New York media, the annual New York Press Club Awards For Journalism honor excellence in the craft by writers, reporters, editors, producers, shooters and multimediographers.

More...on the Awards page.

Despite Commissioner Kelly's pre-Thanksgiving reminder to the rank-and-file that NYPD is obligated to "cooperate with media representatives acting in a news-gathering capacity at the scene of police incidents," there have been a number of recent instances of police officers inexplicably impeding working journalists at police lines.

The latest incident of which we are aware occurred Monday, December 13th, at the World Financial Center plaza. A credentialed photographer was prevented from shooting the arrests of Occupy Wall Street protesters by an officer who, as seen in a video of the encounter, repeatedly placed himself between the photographer's lens and the arrest activity, effectively blocking several shots. The photograhper soon afterward was evicted from the plaza by a higher ranking officer, politely, but for no apparent (or uttered) reason.

In addition to problems in the field, the New York Press Club is receiving an escalating number of complaints from working journalists that the NYPD's Office of Public Information is not honoring the terms of its agreement to systemitize the press credentialing process. An article on December 15th in Gothamist, one of the city's oldest hyperlocal news and commentary websites, chronicles the saga of its so far unsuccessful attempts to secure credentialing for several reporters despite scrupulously following NYPD's published procedures.

The New York Press Club and a number of other organizations representing journalists in New York City have formed the Coalition for the First Amendment to monitor police-press relations and to document and protest tactics and behavior that contravene First Amendment protections. Each instance that comes to our attention will be posted on this site's Free Press Coalition page. We urge working journalists who feel they have been subjected to suppressive or unreasonably exclusionary tactics by NYPD or any other government agency to contact the Press Club.

Visit the Free Press Coalition Page.

View candids from New York Press Club events:

2011 NY Press Club Foundation Holiday Party
Assessing the Press and "Occupy Wall Street"
An Evening With SchoolBook.com Editors
2011 Journalism Conference at NYU

More... in the Photo and Video Galleries