Lifetime Achievement Award Goes to
Joyce Purnick at March 15 Luncheon

by Joe Berger, President

It is safe to say that there are few reporters who have been as savvy and articulate in reporting on the politics and personalities of New York as Joyce Purnick. That is why the Silurians Press Club has decided to honor her with its 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award at a luncheon at noon March 15 at the National Arts Club.

Joyce spent more than 40 years reporting, analyzing and editing the news, particularly political news, of her native New York. For many years, she was The Times’s Metro Matters columnist, receiving the prestigious Meyer Berger Award for the quality of her writing. She was also the first woman to serve as The Times’s City Hall bureau chief and the first woman to serve as Metropolitan Editor. She was named to The Times’s Editorial Board, and wrote the biography “Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics.”

Before joining the Times, she had a distinguished career at Dorothy Schiff’s New York Post and wrote New York Magazine’s City Politic column. A stepmother of three and grandmother of six, she lives in Manhattan with her husband, Max Frankel, the former executive editor of The Times.

Previous recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award read like a roster of the city’s legendary journalists: Gay Talese, Ken Auletta, Pete Hamill, Frank Rich, Seymour Topping, Gloria Steinem, Judith Crist, Murray Kempton, Punch Sulzberger, Max Frankel, Walter Cronkite, and Bernard and Marvin Kalb. Last year’s recipient was the photojournalist Chester Higgins.

The date: Wednesday, March 15, 2023
The time: Noon
The place: National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South