Thursday, September 7: Tonight, Financial Times editor Lionel Barber, US managing editor Gillian Tett, and Washington bureau chief Demetri Sevastopulo hosted the FT Washington Party at the top of the The Observatory at America's Square, in the center of Capitol Hill.
The event welcomed more than 250 guests from the worlds of business, finance, politics, and media to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the FT's US edition and its growth in the US, which is now the largest single country for FT readership. Paid readership in the US makes up over a quarter of global readers and is growing 33% year on year.
Lionel Barber made introductory remarks, saying: “These are testing times for our democracy and the pursuit of trusted, independent journalism. . . Our institutions are being tested, so too the practice of journalism. We journalists should never forget that our privileged status confers a special obligation to attend to the facts and to pursue, as best we can, the truth.”
Guests included: Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports; former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan; Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross; Amabassador Sir Kim Darroch, UK Ambassador; Clement Leung, Hong Kong Commissioner to the United States; Kenichiro Sasae, Ambassador of Japan to the United States; Daniel Mulhall, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States; Navtej Sarna, Ambassador of India to the United States; Robert Rubin, the co-chairman of the Council of Foreign Relations; Bruce Andrews, former Deputy Secretary of Commerce; Tony Fratto, Hamilton Place Strategies; Dirk Wouters, Belgian Ambassador to the United States; Kevin Madden, Hamilton Place Strategies; Norman Ornstein, Senior Fellow at American Enterprise Institue; Jim Manley, former spokesperson for Harry Reid; Director of the National Economic Council and chief economic advisor to President Donald Trump Gary Cohn; Sidney Blumenthal; Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress; James Schultz, senior associate counsel and special assistant to the President; Carl Cannon, editor-in-cheif of Real Clear Politics; Sally Qunn; US Representative Brendan Boyle; US Representative Darrel Issa; Michael Chertoff; Steve Clemons, editor-at-large at The Atlantic; Juleanna Glover; Michael Dimock, President of Pew; US Representative Julian Castro; the Wall Street Journal's Paul Beckett; Roger Ferguson, the president and CEO of TIAA-Creff; Steve Case; Mike Froman; Bob Zoellick; the Washington Post's Margaret Sullivan; Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next; and Matt Sparks.
The crowd enjoyed canapés, specialty cocktails named Without Fear and Without Favour, and champagne Laurent-Perrier La Cuvée. They watched the sunset over Capitol Hill and mingled well into the night. After the party, guests left with goody bags that included Hotel Chocolat truffles, Molton Brown hand wash, FT Rubik’s Cubes, Ettinger wallets, and a pair of books by FT writers: The Retreat of Western Liberalism, by Financial Times Washington columnist and commentator Edward Luce, and Makers and Takers, by FT associate editor and global business columnist Rana Foroohar.