Huffington to Keynote Columbia Spectator Dinner; Didion Also Featured Speaker

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Jan 31, 2011, 10:00 ET

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, will present the keynote address at the Columbia Spectator's Annual Awards Dinner, on Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011, at the Columbia University Club of New York.

Author and essayist Joan Didion will present the first Quintana Roo Dunne Award for Visual Achievement in memory of her late daughter, a Spectator alumna. The annual Brian K. Malmon Memorial Award will also be presented.

This dinner is the Spectator's annual fundraising event and proceeds will go towards technology upgrades, the digitization of the Spectator archives dating back to 1877, and financial aid for student journalists. Past speakers have included Marcus Brauchli, executive editor of The Washington Post; Dean Baquet, assistant managing editor of The New York Times; and Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker.

Ticket prices for the benefit dinner start at $250 and are available at http://alumni.columbiaspectator.com/rsvp.php. Pre-dinner cocktails begin at 6 P.M., followed by dinner at 7 P.M. and Ms. Huffington's and Ms. Didion's presentations at 8:30 P.M. Tickets for the presentations alone are available for $50.

The Columbia University Club is located at 15 West 43rd Street, between Fifth Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas, in New York City.

About the Columbia Spectator: The Columbia Spectator is the student newspaper of Columbia University in the City of New York. Founded in 1877, the Spectator is the second-oldest college daily paper in the country, and has been financially independent from the University since 1962. Distinguished Spectator alumni include Julius Genachowski, the current chairman of the Federal Communications Commission; Max Frankel, the former executive editor of The New York Times; and the late television pioneer Roone Arledge, creator of Monday Night Football.

About Arianna Huffington: Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that has quickly become one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In addition, she's a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of thirteen books. Her latest, Third World America, published in September 2010, chronicles the struggles of America's besieged middle class. She is also co-host of "Left, Right & Center," public radio's popular political roundtable program, as well as "Both Sides Now," a weekly syndicated radio show with Mary Matalin moderated by Mark Green. She is a frequent guest on television shows such as Charlie Rose, Real Time with Bill Maher, This Week with Christiane Amanpour and The Rachel Maddow Show.

About Joan Didion: Joan Didion's many works include the essay collections Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album, as well as The Year of Magical Thinking, her autobiographical account of the year following the death of her husband, author John Gregory Dunne. The Year of Magical Thinking won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2005. Her next book, Blue Nights, a memoir, will be published by Knopf in fall 2011.

The Columbia Spectator is published by the Spectator Publishing Company, a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law.