National Press Foundation Awards Dinner

Last night I had the honor and the privilege of attending the National Press Foundation's 28th annual awards dinner. The dinner honors the best in American journalism and is attended by many icons in the industry. This year's attendees included Arianna Huffington, John King, Alan Greenspan and Timothy Geithner, as well as award winners MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, CNN's Dana Bash and POLITICO cartoonist Matt Wuerker, just to name a few.

John King and Dana Bash
at the awards ceremony

I got this incredible opportunity thanks to Barbara Cochran, former RTDNA president, vice president for news at NPR, executive producer of NBC's Meet the Press and vice president and Washington bureau chief for CBS News. She's also the Hurley Chair at the Missouri School of Journalism, and was able to secure a table for the group of Missouri students I'm here with in Washington. She, along with our program coordinator Wes Pippert, introduced us to many of the night's attendees.

The event was fabulous. It was held in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton. We dined on fancy foods I had never had before.... wild mushroom bisque en croute, pan seared halibut in a pomegranate emulsion, butternut squash puree, roasted baby sweet peppers, baby onion and mushrooms, caramelized pineapple with basil ice cream, lychee glace and cherry crumble, chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. It was all delicious. I'm not sure what's so special about having baby versions of all the vegetables, but they were tasty.

Ballroom at the Washington Hilton

Everyone received goody bags complete with the latest issue of The Economist, screen cleaning rag and spray sponsored by The Daily and a baby tree. Yes, a baby tree. In a bottle. Not sure where I'm going to plant it in my capitol hill apartment haha.

This night is why I came to Washington. Opportunities like this don't come up anywhere else. I'm 21, and I just had dinner with the big shots from The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NPR, NBC, ABC, CNN, Google, Hearst, The Huffington Post, AP, Bloomberg and POLITICO. This is why the Missouri School of Journalism is the best people.

At the awards ceremony with Erin Schwartz (left) and Kathleen Majorsky (right).