Notes From the Overseas Press Club Awards Gala

FishbowlNY was in attendance at the packed Mandarin Oriental Hotel ballroom last night overlooking a very green Central Park for the Overseas Press Club‘s annual presentation of awards. And it was a mix of seriousness, sadness, melancholy and — thanks to Brian Williams and a pair of cartoonists — humor. Williams was the master of ceremonies, and did a deft job of segues considering many award-winners had lost colleagues while chasing their award-winning stories. Williams offered such light anecdotes as a sketchy overseas plane flight with Geraldo and Peter Jennings (who was honored in a candle lighting before the awards portion) and a generational moment with a young iPod-rocking producer in the halls of NBC.