Moving Forward at The Press Club?   

Controvery swirls abou the president of the National Press Club.

Controvery swirls abou the president of the National Press Club.

He casually dismisses the suggestion that he is a crusader for a responsible media. But Douglas Harbrecht takes journalism's reputation seriously.

And as the newly elected president of the National Press Club, he finds himself in a position to do something about it. Harbrecht, Business Week's Washington news editor, ran unopposed and was inaugurated in February.

Reaching a younger generation of newsies and shedding the veneer of an "old boys' club" are among his goals, says the 46-year-old Harbrecht, who might be chided by club elders if they knew he had romped naked in the mud at Woodstock.

Some members say Harbrecht was propelled to victory in part by a large 64-member voting block from McGraw Hill, Business Week's parent, and another 11 votes from Scripps Howard.

And some members, particularly ones who joined long before the electronic media were even a blip, aren't exactly Harbrecht's fans. "I have been in the club nearly every day for 15 years and until a meeting [on January 23], I had never seen his face," says Buffalo News Washington Bureau Chief Douglas Turner. "I had no idea who he was, what he wanted for the club or even what he looked like."

Harbrecht's not the first to ascend to the presidency without working his way up through the club, says Heather Ann Hope, 29, a member of its board of governors and a staff writer at Congressional Quarterly's House Action Reports.

"He's never chaired a press club committee, and I think that's a concern for a lot of members," says Hope, straining for diplomacy. "It's an unfortunate development, but it's getting to be more and more common."

Lack of time logged in committees is not the only complaint. Turner, who says he was "absolutely creamed" in a run for NPC president nine years ago for being too controversial, was irritated by Harbrecht's seeming disregard for and insensitivity toward some members at the January meeting.

Several older members ? including five or six past presidents ? wanted to return the controversial "Phryne," a painting of a nude woman, to the lounge wall, where it had hung for more than 50 years until it was moved to storage during club renovations in the mid '80s.

Some club members say the painting has become the "Confederate flag of the press club." To older members, it serves as an identity marker. To others, including Harbrecht, it hearkens back to times when the painted woman was the only female allowed in the club.

Harbrecht says there were not enough members present to allow a vote on the painting's placement.

Others weren't so sure the painting's supporters came up short. "He ignored several members who have meant a lot to this club ? just dismissed them out of hand," says Turner.

Harbrecht, who seems more concerned with consumers' opinions of the press than with members' opinions of him, responds: "Let me be known by the enemies I have made." "I'm trying to move this club forward," he says.

Harbrecht's colleague comes to his defense. The club traditionally has been "a watering hole," says Owen Ullmann, Business Week's senior news editor in Washington. "Doug sees [the club presidency] as public service while they see it as a status symbol," he says.

Harbrecht says relations with and among club members as the club's history and its future merge are just one challenge. With the addition of 110 new young members on top of 1,600 local active journalists (there are 4,500 total members, including voting and non-voting affiliates and associates) in the past year, the club for the first time in recent history has more members under the age of 34 than over the age of 80, Hope says.

Besides trying to cater to the younger membership, Harbrecht says he also wants to boost the club's online presence. "He realizes that if it's going to be a relevant club in the next millennium..we will have to speed up our member resources in terms of the technology we offer," says Tim Maloy, chair of the press club's library committee and publisher of Internet Newsroom, a newsletter on ways the press can use the Net as a tool. "He wants the club to be more than a place where old men can sit around and drink bourbon."

But most important on his to-do list, Harbrecht says, is to help journalism regain its footing in the national consciousness. "I think there's a definite sloppiness that's creeping into journalism," Harbrecht says. "Web sites and online media outlets are putting out information instantaneously, and in their rush to get the news out first they are overlooking the very basic elements of proper journalism. It's basic sense to check with two sources before you publish anything, and that's just not happening these days."

So Harbrecht plans to use the press club as a bully pulpit. "When I came out in '74, journalism was a priesthood. We ain't so pure anymore," he says. "There still has to be a basic love and a basic adherence to certain professional standards. We need to remember why we're doing this and how important our role is as a protector of democracy."