NACDS RxIMPACT Day to feature keynote political analyst Ron Fournier
ARLINGTON, Va. – Attendees at NACDS RxIMPACT Day on Capitol Hill will enjoy late-breaking and entertaining political analysis from Ron Fournier, senior political columnist and editorial director of National Journal and the co-author of the New York Times best-seller "Applebee’s America: How Successful Political, Business and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community."
“It is one thing to say a journalist has covered some of America’s leading political figures. It is another thing entirely to say that coverage has earned the journalist a place of respect among peers and across the political spectrum – as is the case with Ron Fournier,” stated Steven Anderson, NACDS president and CEO. “NACDS RxIMPACT Day on Capitol Hill participants are in for a fantastic experience when Ron takes the stage.”
NACDS RxIMPACT Day on Capitol Hill brings pharmacy advocates to Capitol Hill to discuss issues vital to pharmacy patient care and to describe pharmacy’s role as the “face of neighborhood healthcare.” Fournier will speak during the event’s welcome dinner on March 16.
Fournier began his journalism career in Arkansas at the Sentinel Record in 1985. He transferred to the Arkansas Democrat in 1987 and began covering then-Gov. Bill Clinton. In 1989, Fournier was hired by the Associated Press, which transferred him to Washington to cover the Clinton White House. In 2006, he left the Associated Press briefly to run a social networking start up, HotSoup.com, but returned to in 2007 as the online political editor. In 2010, Fournier moved to National Journal as editor-in-chief; he stepped down in 2012, wanting to return to reporting and writing.
Fournier has won numerous awards, including the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award and the prestigious White House Correspondents’ Association Merriman Smith Memorial Award four times. His 2012 cover story on the decline of U.S. institutions was awarded an honorable mention in David Brook’s essay contest, the Sidney Awards. Also succeeding at the heights of academia, Fournier served in 2005 as a Harvard fellow at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, where he currently serves on the Senior Advisory Board.
David Bradley, owner of National Journal parent company Atlantic Media, has said of Fournier, “Ron’s name has been whispered to me as in that handful of the finest political reporters and editors who have worked in Washington – maybe ever.”
Fournier’s engagement in NACDS RxIMPACT Day on Capitol Hill follows the appearance of former Governor and former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour, R-Miss., at NACDS Week in New York last December, and the appearance of Morton Kondracke of Roll Call at the NACDS Regional Chain Conference in February. At the NACDS Annual Meeting in April, Larry Sabato, founder of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, will keynote the NACDS Political Action Committee Breakfast.