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Max Farndale publisher of MSC Newswire.Washington-based news agency EIN Presswire has embarked upon a joint venture with the National Press Club. The venture sends news about the New Zealand productive sector to North America and the rest of the world. The arrangement was put together by Max Farndale (pictured at side) publisher of MSC Newswire. It is the affiliate of the Washington news company.

The proprietor of EIN Presswire David Rothstein (pictured underneath) declared that the joint venture was part of his organisation’s world-wide emphasis on the productive sector and especially in manufacturing.

"New Zealand has this reputation in North America and Europe for honesty of purpose blended with an inventive sense of industry. There is now this opportunity of presenting the products of this to the world at large."

 

The Washington news agency turned to MSC Newswire to develop the channel for New Zealand manufacturer news into the North American market. It was then that Mr Farndale talked to the National Press Club to assist in the venture.

MSC Newswire is the only such organisation in Australasia dealing exclusively in productive sector news. All the other agencies focus on the financial news and politics spectrum.

Mr Farndale observed that New Zealand’s economy rests on its ability to produce products that people need and which are three dimensional..

Since the 1987 crash in which New Zealand lost all its banks and insurance companies along with 150 years worth of accumulated capital, it had ceased to be regarded globally as a repository of financial expertise, an impression confirmed since 2007 when almost all its finance companies had gone to the wall.

“So our focus is on manufacturing, production engineering, and processing, spheres in which New Zealand enjoys a high and sustained reputation.”

The joint venture organised by MSC Newswire has run since the start of the last quarter of 2014. According to Mr Farndale data reveals that over half the audience for the New Zealand productive sector stories is now within North America.

“It is one of those examples of an outsider, in this case Washington’s EIN Presswire, seeing an opportunity that was hiding in plain sight of the locals,” commented Mr Farndale.

MSC Newswire is based in Hawkes Bay which Mr Farndale considers one of the hearts of the productive sector. The company was formed two years ago.

The National Press Club’s role is to use its members own resources to identify products and companies of interest. The club’s newsmaker category includes industrialists, technicians, and administrators in the productive sector.

The procedure is for the New Zealand productive sector stories to enter the project via MSC Newswire and for these stories then to be vectored onto EIN Presswire’s global network.

“It is an example of the kind of leverage that can be obtained through this joint approach. In this case it means that New Zealand’s productive sector news is seen by an audience hundreds of times greater than if the same stories had been restricted to just local consumption,” added Max Farndale

“It overcomes the problem of New Zealand producers marketing back to themselves and to the people who already know all about them, and what they are doing. It has opened up an entirely new world for the productive sector here.”

The proprietor of EIN Presswire David Rothstein (pictured underneath) declared that the joint venture was part of his organisation’s world-wide emphasis on the productive sector and especially in manufacturing.

 


 

Press Gallery member Tony Haas (centre) is pictured in Parliament with former New Zealand Herald proprietor Michael Horton and Judith Tizard MP at the opening ceremony under National Press Club auspices of the Triangle Stratos television channel.Foreign correspondent and National Press Club member Tony Haas recently assigned himself to Germany in order to research his German forebears and especially his grandfather Ludwig Haas, one of the very few who could have prevented the Second World War.

His grandfather was the Democratic Party leader during the era of the Weimar Republic. Ludwig Haas’ reputation had been established immediately after World War 1 when he had actively campaigned against accepting the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. He argued that the punitive reparations would inevitably detonate further conflict, which they did.

Ludwig Haas died in 1930. Before he died he urged his son, Tony Haas’ father, to put as much distance as he could between himself and Germany.

This Karl Haas quickly did. He settled in Pahiatua, New Zealand, and began a new life as a farmer.

In Germany Tony Haas met civic officials in Karlsruhe, part of his grandfather’s old electorate. They urged him to produce a book entitled Ludwig Haas: Active Citizen. So called because of Ludwig’s active civic conscience which might have averted World War 2.

In the meantime Tony Haas will include the episode in his own autobiography centred on his long-time reportorial beat. It will be entitled Being Palangi: My Pacific Journey.

In the photograph, and back on his home turf, Press Gallery member Tony Haas (centre) is pictured in Parliament with former New Zealand Herald proprietor Michael Horton and Judith Tizard MP at the opening ceremony under National Press Club auspices of the Triangle Stratos television channel.


 

Robin Bromby’s career spans more than half a century.Fiona Duncan was for many years in the advertising department of Wellington Newspapers Ltd.Robin Bromby’s career spans more than half a century. He began as a cadet on The Dominion, Wellington in 1962 and he remains today under full power as the influential commodities correspondent of The Australian. In New Zealand he was a key man in ushering in the Rupert Murdoch era and for a while helmed the tabloid Sunday Times. He was a reporter on the South China Morning Post, and the Melbourne Herald. He is a noted documentary author with his books published by Doubleday and Simon & Schuster. These include histories of New Zealand and Australia with several specialist books on rail transport. He is the author of Mining Investors Handbook, and of a standard work on World War 2 logistics. 

 

Fiona Duncan was for many years in the advertising department of Wellington Newspapers Ltd and was responsible for numerous special projects, especially in establishing the company’s leadership in technology special features. On moving to Sydney she became involved in the digital sphere concentrating on internet targeted marketing.

 

 

 

Minister of Education Hon, Steve Maharey and Connie with the club’s silverware and plaque

Connie with NZ Book Council ceo Lincoln Gould and Fairfax political columnist Vernon Small

Connie with husband Dr Charles Sneiderman and Radio New Zealand chairman Richard Griffin

Connie with Fairfax columnist and Radio Live host Sean Plunke

Connie with Hon Steve Maharey, Carrick Lewis, and Norrie Lewis

For a generation from Washington Connie Lawn every week day morning brought to the radio listeners of the world’s remotest English-speaking nation news from the White House.
 

New Zealanders time zones ahead usually heard the breaks before their counterparts in the United States. Connie Lawn was as much a part of the New Zealand way of life as their rugby version of football or a sheep shearing gang.
 

Then she was gone, and with her the intimate first-person portrayals of the decisions and the decision makers at the fulcrum of the Western World. Connie Lawn had been scythed aside in one of the ritual restructurings that are part of mainstream broadcasting everywhere. In this particular rite of passage she was replaced by local content, mostly in the form of contrived news notably sport.
 

If Radio New Zealand was finished with her, Connie Lawn was not finished with New Zealand. For the best part of the intervening generation her voice in the southern latitudes was rarely stilled.
 

Being heard, for example, in regular bulletins on Radio Live.  Since the advent of the internet she is a regular contributor to Scoop, the nation’s version of the Huffington Post.
 

She has been unofficial ambassador for New Zealand pointing in the right direction through the Washington maze fellow journalists, listeners, business people, diplomats, in fact, anyone at all who asks for help.
 

In 2006 she was presented in Parliament with the National Press Club’s Lifetime Achievement Award. You may not always agree with what Miss Lawn says. But you are never left in any doubt about what she is saying. Outlining in her acceptance speech her own journalistic career in Washington which started in 1968, and which subsequently encompassed marriage and motherhood she dwelled on the trade’s willingness in that era to give opportunity to women.
 

Now, in contrast, she noted, there were so many other and different career opportunities available for young females.
 

“Women can have better things to do,” she told her audience in the Parliamentary auditorium. “There are now so many careers for women outside journalism,” she insisted to her listeners many of whom had anticipated a feminist anti discriminatory appeal.
 

A few years later she was presented by Ambassador Mike Moore at the New Zealand embassy in Washington with the Honorary Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to New Zealand-U.S. Relations.
 

Now though the woman who always chose to compete on equal terms with everyone finds herself battling an enemy who she knows is each day getting the upper hand.
 

For the past years, since she was 65, she has been afflicted by Parkinson’s Disease which most cruelly of all has robbed her of her voice. Though not of her ability to type her regular insightful bulletins to The Huffington Post, and Scoop, among others.
 

She applies full disclosure to her affliction. Not for sympathy. But because “it makes me stagger and I do not want people to think that I am drunk.”
 

For Connie Lawn, honours tend to arrive unsought. She is now the Dean of the White House Press Corps, following the death of Helen Lawrence. She has rubbed shoulders with every president from Lyndon Johnson onward, has interviewed more international icons living and dead than practically anyone else on earth. Has skied most of the world’s signature ski slopes and in New Zealand had a race horse named after her.
 

Connie Lawn’s career proves that any obstacle is just an opportunity in disguise and should be treated as such.

 

You May not always agree with what Miss Lawn says…….
But you are never left in any doubt what she is saying.



Previous page: Dean of the White House Press Corps Connie Lawn and husband Dr Charles Sneiderman in the White House with President Obama and Mrs Obama.


At the reception at Parliament on the occasion of the presentation to Connie Lawn in 2006 of the National Press Club’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
 



At left from the top. Minister of Education Hon, Steve Maharey and Connie with the club’s silverware and plaque;
Connie with NZ Book Council ceo Lincoln Gould and Fairfax political columnist Vernon Small;
Connie with husband Dr Charles Sneiderman and Radio New Zealand chairman Richard Griffin;
Connie with Fairfax columnist and Radio Live host Sean Plunket;
Connie with Hon Steve Maharey, Carrick Lewis, and Norrie Lewis.

 



Below: In 2012 Connie was presented with the New Zealand order of Merit by ambassador Mike Moore at the New Zealand Embassy, Washington. Ambassador Moore is a former prime minister of New Zealand and a former head of the World Trade Organisation. He is a regular speaker at the National Press Club in Wellington.. 

In 2012 Connie was presented with the New Zealand order of Merit by ambassador Mike Moore at the New Zealand Embassy, Washington.

 

 

Centre of Influence   The National Press Club founded in 1974  is open to anyone of learning and curiosity who is interested in free speech and in the events around them. The club is well financed and from its inception the total joining fee remains $35. It is an annual subscription designed to assist those from all walks of life to participate in the club's role as the capital's independent centre of influence. Those interested in joining should email president This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  

"The National Press Club has the value of being inclusive." Life Member Rt Hon. Jonathan Hunt ONZ

Among those who have spoken to the National Press Club in recent years have been:

HE Syed Ibne Abbas
Richard V Allen
HE Robert Alston
Guillermo Altares
Hon Jim Anderton, MP
Lord Archer
Ed Asner
Rowan Atkinson
Tim Barnett, MP
Kim Beazley
Sir James Belich
Michael Bentine
Sir Paul Beresford
Georgina Beyer MP
HE Saaed Bhatti
Acker Bilk
Sir Gordon Bisson
Michael Bloomberg
Sir Chay Blythe
Michelle Boag
Rt Hon Jim Bolger
Tom Bradley
Don Brash
Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun
Simon Brickles
Baroness Brigstock
Geraldine Brooks
Gerry Brownlee MP
Tom Burns
Elizabeth Calder
Alastair Cooke
Sir Roger Cork
Pam Corkery
HE Robert Cotton
Baroness Caroline Cox
Ian Cross
Hon Dr. Michael Cullen, MP
David Cunliffe MP
Dr. Theodore Dalrymple
Trevor de Cleene, MP
Bernard Diedrich
HE Gary Domingo
John Douglas
Karl du Fresne
Hon. Peter Dunne, MP
Dick Emery
Hon. Bill English, MP
Patrick Ensor
James Fallows
HE Richard Fell
Ian Fletcher
Frederick Forsyth

  Dr Liam Fox
Ian Fraser
Victoria Gaither
Nicholas Garland
Sir Douglas Graham
Nicky Hager
Christopher Harder
Cynthia Heimel
Paul Henry
Gerald Hensley
Chaim Herzog
Charlton Heston
Claire Hollingworth
Marc Holtzman
Michael Horton
Barry Humphries
Rt Hon Jonathan Hunt
Glenda Jackson
Paul Johnson
Sue Kedgley
Thomas Keneally
John Key MP
Peter Kittakachorn
Air Vice Marshall Robin Klitscher
Philip Knightley
Winnie Laban MP
Rt Hon Lee Kuan Yew
HH The Dalai Lama
Rt Hon David Lange
Connie Lawn
Judy Lessing
Lord Levene
Bernard Levin
Andrew Little MP
Gerald Long
Dr Sharon Lord
Carolyn Machado
Peter Mahon
Ron Mark MP
HE Otto Mattei
Dame Judith Mayhew
Murry McCully MP
Gerald McGhie
Patrick McGovern
Hon Don McKinnon
Tony Molloy QC
Sir Nick Montagu
Tony Molloy QC
Mike Moore, MP
Trevor Morley
Malcolm Muggeridge
Viscount Monckton
 

Dame Thea Muldoon
Hon Robert Muldoon
Steve Norris
Barrie Osborne
Terence O'Brien
Hon Winston Peters
Sir William Pickering
Daniel Pipes
Jean Plantureux (Plantu)
John Platts Mills QC
Kawana Pohe
Hon Richard Prebble
Gordon Ramsay
George Reedy
Hon Robert Reich
James Reston
Elliot Richardson
Commissioner Robbie Robinson
John Ralston Saul
Rt Hon Jenny Shipley, MP
Peter Shirtcliffe
Prince Norodom Sihanouk
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo
Sir Dryden Spring
Ambassador Charles Swindells
Peter Switzer
Hon. John Tamihere, MP
Oliver Tambo
Nandor Tanczos, MP
Lord Tebbit
Mark Tier
Lester Thurow
Peter Troughton
Hon Taria Turia MP
Simon Upton
Sir Peter Ustinov
Count Otto Von Lambsdorff
Terry Waite
Kurt Waldheim
Asher Wallfish
Peter Walters
John Wareham
Auberon Waugh
Terence White
HE Martin Williams
Maj. Gen Peter Williams
Ian Wishart
Martin Wolf
Richard Woods
David Yallop


Hon solicitor: Jack Hodder LLM

Lifetime Achievement Award Holders
Peter Arnett, Sir Geoffrey Cox, Pat Booth, Frank Haden, Connie Lawn, Sir Terry McLean, Graham Stewart MNZM

Life Members
Denis Adam, Tim Birch, Paul Cavanagh, Catherine de la Roche, Gavin Ellis, Rt Hon. Jonathan Hunt ONZ,
Jack Kelleher, Ralph Lenton, Warren Page, Pat Plunket, Paul Prince, Derek Round MNZM, Graham Stewart, Sir Christopher Harris

Executive Committee and Member Information

The National Press Club Inc President Peter Isaac - Journalist

Secretary/Treasurer Bryan Weyburne - Retired businessman

Lifetime Achievement Award Holders
Peter Arnett, Sir Geoffrey Cox, Pat Booth, Frank Haden, Connie Lawn, Sir Terry McLean, Graham Stewart MNZM

Life Members
Denis Adam, Tim Birch, Paul Cavanagh, Catherine de la Roche, Gavin Ellis ONZM, Rt Hon. Jonathan Hunt ONZ, Jack Kelleher, Ralph Lenton, Warren Page, Pat Plunket, Paul Prince, Derek Round MNZM, Sir Christopher Harris

 

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