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Connecting
July 26, 2024
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A full moon rises behind the Olympic rings hanging from the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Monday. Click here for Olympic coverage from the AP. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Colleagues,
Good Friday morning on this July 26, 2024,
Connecting’s newest feature listing the year and bureau where you began your AP career continues to pay dividends in the great stories it has spawned.
The latest comes from our colleague Barry Shlachter and his story about his boss being told not to hire him in the Tokyo bureau by Keith Fuller, then personnel director but soon to become AP’s top executive.
Barry returned to the U.S. on a Nieman Fellowship after a posting for the AP in East Africa, served briefly in AP’s Boston bureau, then became a roving regional writer, columnist and editor for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He now writes for several magazines and runs a small book venture, Great Texas Line Press.
Today’s issue also brings you more great stories of cities that bear your name – a series started early this week when Topeka Correspondent John Hanna told about his quest to visit every city in the U.S. named Hanna. Haven’t share your own story? Please do so over the weekend.
A HAPPY HEAVENLY BIRTHDAY to our late colleague Gene Herrick, one of the most prolific and enjoyable contributors to our newsletter. Gene died in April at the age of 97. Click here for his AP obituary story. His longtime companion, Kitty Hylton, is a Connecting colleague.
Here’s to a great weekend – be safe, stay healthy, live each day to your fullest.
Paul
A tale of AP subterfuge – until GM Keith Fuller found him out
Barry Shlachter - My 12 years with The AP got off to a very rocky start.
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In April 1974, I was a near-starving freelancer in Tokyo who had walked away from my major gig. The Newsweek bureau chief, the late Bernie Krisher, insisted I write an utterly untrue story that U.S. companies were leaving Japan over the high cost of living.
Japanese friends in the media, including AP photographer Sadayuki Mikami, took me out for a going-away dinner at a Chinese restaurant. In walked Roy Essoyan, the new AP bureau chief. Mikami insisted I meet him. Unbeknownst to me, Essoyan was frustrated by reporters sent out from New York who didn’t speak Japanese, and young Japanese reporters who couldn’t churn out clean copy.
We chatted, and Roy said to stop by the bureau the following day. He ended up offering me $500 a month (less than half a low-ranked, U.S. staffer’s housing allowance), but it proved a dream assignment. Eventually.
I had given myself one last free-lance assignment, and flew off to the Philippines to write about the Moro uprising on Mindanao, and ended up held at gunpoint for a week until I convinced them I wasn’t a spook. “If I was a CIA spy, I’d dress far better,” I argued successfully.
Back In Tokyo, I fell asleep on my typewriter at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club after telexing my story to the Washington Evening Star. Hours later I was awakened by a telex from the Star: “UNNEED FILIPINO STORY AT THIS TIME.”
Shaken, I told myself, well, I still had my new AP job.
I walked across the street to the bureau for my first day of work only to have Essoyan tell me that AP’s personnel chief, Keith Fuller, had instructed: “Don’t hire Shlachter. Hire a Japanese and pay a decent wage.”
Walking around the Ginza in a daze, I ended up on a shoe shine stand. The middle-aged Japanese buffing my boots, likely a member of the outcast burakumin community of leather workers and butchers, considered “unclean” by mainstream Buddhists, began bantering and joking with me. I had spent time in some of their communities as part of my university research, and quickly realizing that, whatever befell me, I was still quite fortunate.
Shaking off the double whammy dose of bad news, I ventured back to The AP to asked Roy his advice on my next step.
“I’m hiring you,” he stated. “I’m just not telling New York. Don’t put your name on any story. And we’ll see how it goes.”
My boss was Ed Q. White, the news editor, who basically taught me what would get on the wire and what wouldn’t. He’d throw copy back at me, shouting, “Make it sing, Shlachter!”
In those days, an AP writer would put his or her last name at the bottom of each take. And if the Foreign Desk deemed it worthy of a byline, they’d ask for the writer’s full name. One day, the night desk editor was Phil Brown, who apparently didn’t know Essoyan’s subterfuge. The Foreign Desk asked who had written the feature I had filed – dutifully withholding my surname. Phil sent a service message back: BARRY SHLACHTER.
Somehow Fuller quickly learned of the bylined story, and that Essoyan had defied him. I wasn’t privy to the exchange, but was told that the HR vice president was livid. Then a freelance feature I had written months joining bureau began popping up in numerous U.S. newspapers when it was carried by the LATimes/Washington Post wire. Again, Fuller was livid. Somehow not realizing it was the same article with each paper putting on a different headline, Fuller complained that I was still freelancing all over the place.
Then I heard Fuller, newly promoted to general manager, was coming to visit the Tokyo bureau. The last person I wanted to meet. I planned to give him wide berth, maybe go on vacation. Essoyan had other plans. “Every time Keith turns around, you will be there. I want him to meet you, get to know you.” I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea.
Doing what I was told, I was Fuller’s Zeling. The towering AP executive, who looked to me like an even craggier, tougher John Wayne, sometimes would turn to me to explain something or interpret when office manager Shin Higashi was out of earshot. We chatted during rides to Japanese newspapers and dinners for major subscribers.
The animus was forgotten. Later that year, I paid my way to New York (no home leave for local hires), and was invited to meet Fuller. “You’re facile with languages,” he said. (Not really.) “I want to open a bureau in The Hague. Come to New York for six weeks, and then we’ll send you out.”
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Photo taken on the Kyber Railway during my second trip to Pakistan (from Tokyo); I'm standing, (bottom left) the late Ian Jack of the (UK) Sunday Times and (right) Mark Tully of the BBC. Photo by AP Photographer Jess Tan.
After the vote of confidence wore off, I wondered what the hell I would do in Western Europe. I wanted to cover Asia. That last year in Tokyo found me dispatched to the Korean DMZ after North Korean troops killed two U.S. Army officers with hatchets, to Thailand for a coup attempt and, after returning from New York, twice to Pakistan to cover Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s fixed election and overthrow. After my last stint in Pakistan, I traveled to New Delhi. India and Pakistan seemed like endless adventure. This, I felt, was what being a foreign correspondent was all about.
I wrote Keith Fuller, saying I’d go to The Hague, but if a slot in India ever opened up, I’d be happy to go to New Delhi.
Coincidentally, the Delhi bureau’s No. 2, Paul Chutkow, was asking for a transfer because his newborn child had a health issue. I picture our letters landing on Fuller’s desk the same day. I sensed that neither Fuller nor Tom Pendergast, who succeeded him as VP of personnel, wanted to come to South Asia although Pendergast might have drawn a short straw once. So there might have been surprise on the seventh (executive) floor that someone actually wanted to be posted in India.
So, without being “regularized” with a stint in New York or a domestic bureau, I was transferred directly to New Delhi. I was still making a fraction of Guild minimum pay (foreign correspondents, considered “management,” couldn’t join the union). But I was going where I wanted to be and spent nearly five eventful years on the subcontinent. All thanks to a person who didn’t want me hired in the first place. Keith Fuller.
AP Takes Down Fact-Check Of JD Vance Couch Claim After Article By-Passed ‘Editing Process’
David Gilmour
Mediaite
The Associated Press removed its fact-check debunking the claim that former President Donald Trump’s running mate Senator JD Vance (R-OH) once had sex with a couch just 24-hours after it was published after the article “didn’t go through” the outlet’s “standard editing process.”
A spokesperson for the Associated Press told Mediaite:
The story, which did not go out on the wire to our customers, didn’t go through our standard editing process. We are looking into how that happened.
In an article titled “No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch”, the Associated Press addressed the bizarre rumor that in Vance’s 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, he mentioned having sex with “an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions.” The debunk article was first published on Wednesday as the claim was spreading widely online.
The fact check revealed that a PDF search of the book contained 10 references to “couch” or “couches,” but none implied any sexual activity with the furniture. Furthermore, the AP confirmed that the words “sofa” and “glove” do not appear anywhere in the book.
The rumor, it turns out, was first posted on July 15, the same day Trump announced Vance as his vice presidential pick, by X user @rickrudescalves.
The user later protected his account and, according to Snopes, an internet misinformation watchdog, indicated that the post was nonsense by sharing a meme that read: “You really think someone would do that, just go on the internet and tell lies?”
Read more here. Shared by Mark Mittelstadt, Myron Belkind.
Connecting series:
What’s in a name? They’ll tell you
Adolphe Bernotas - Pictures of me on my bicycle in St. Adolphe, Manitoba, and of Bernotai (plural of Bernotas) sans bike in my native Lithuania either have been lost or misplaced in downsizings from a house with two acres of lawn, to a smaller house and finally to a tiny condo (which still has too much stuff, according to Marguerite).
I visited St. Adolphe during my cross-country bike ride (done in four summer chunks in the 1990s from Washington to Maine), detouring from the Bikecentennial Route through North Dakota and Minnesota.
As for Bernotai, on one of my several visits to Lithuania my relatives drove me the community to prove that it is the geographical center of Europe, as a monument at the spot attests to that assertion, a distinction claimed by several places in that part of Europe.
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Pat Fergus - Last summer my sister and I visited Fergus, Ontario, a community founded by Scottish settlers in 1833. We were there for the annual Scottish Festival and Highland Games, which we enjoyed. But the most fun we had was exploring the picturesque village and seeing our family name everywhere - on shops, the theater, the water tower, sidewalk benches, historic markers - and in great big letters in one of the gardens. Of course, we had to pose for pictures to send to our relatives. In this shot I am standing in front of the U, but trust me, the sign does spell FERGUS.
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Joe Galu - And there ain't no Galu on any map. It's a misspelling of Gallo.
From Calabria, Antonio could not read or write, but he fathered eight sons and eight daughters with the help of two consecutive wives, made and lost lots of money, owned a farm, extensive real estate, a restaurant, meat market and grocery store.
You did not want to be in the dining room before a real estate closing when he had to practice writing his signature. He had a violent temper and a good aim -- hellava combination.
I had a cleft palate. He spoke heavily accented English. We had trouble communicating to one another, but just about ev'ry kid loves his grandfather, so we tried. He had to explain Labor Day to me the first time I ever saw him sitting down doing nothing.
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Eva Parziale - I haven’t come across any cities named after the Parziales, but there is a long-standing bakery in Boston’s North End called Parziale's Bakery. It’s a tourist draw and local institution. “Some of the finest restaurants and retailers in Boston carry our breads and pizza,” according to its website. We don’t have a family connection, but I wish we did. Nor did we get a chance to try any of the bakery’s breads or pizza during our visit there last fall, but I can tell you that the cookies were great!
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Dave Royse - My grandparents told me when I was a kid in Kentucky that our family founded Royse City, Texas, and with the less common spelling with "s" in Royse instead of a "c" like Rolls Royce, that may very well be true. In a very weird coincidence, about 15 years ago my wife's sister and her family moved to the town next to Royse City, these days essentially a far suburb of Dallas. So we have been a few times to visit and my son and I have always gotten a picture by the sign. This one was in 2013. A couple years ago we went to get our occasional photo, but the sign is no more. The field where it was is now a parking lot for a very good barbecue restaurant, which at least gave me a free beer when I told them my sad tale about not being able to get a new pic in front of the sign.
Dave Royse, formerly of the Louisville, Miami and Tallahassee bureaus
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Cliff Schiappa - While my last name, Schiappa, is quite uncommon, it does appear in Steubenville, Ohio, as the name of a library branch, a winery, and a road, but nowhere is it used as the name of a town. However, I did find a town named Clifford and stopped by for a visit.
I was driving from Kansas City to Winnipeg, Canada to cover the 1999 Pan American Games and noticed my route would go near the location of, at that time, the world’s tallest television tower, a little factoid I remembered from reading the Guinness Book of World Records when I was a kid. Curious to get a view, I got off the interstate and discovered just a bit further down the road was the town of Clifford, so of course I made the detour from the tower to my namesake. I went to the downtown Post Office with the name Clifford across the front wall just as Postmaster Shelia R. Anderson was raising the American flag for the day. Sharing the retail space of the Post Office was the Clifford Cut ‘n’ Curl Beauty Salon. I made some photos around town and Ms. Anderson gave me a refrigerator magnet that I still have exactly 25 years later.
Three Gifted Residents Elected to Montclair Local Board
CONNECTING EDITOR'S NOTE: Brian Carovillano is a former AP managing editor and Kathleen Carroll is a former AP executive editor. The Montclair Local is an independent news nonprofit serving Montclair and Essex County, NJ)
by Montclair Local
Three outstanding local residents, Catherine Taibi Autorino, Brian Carovillano and Alice Anoff Iversen, have been elected to the Montclair Local Board of Trustees.
Autorino is senior business development manager, news publishers for LinkedIn. Carovillano is senior vice president and head of standards for the NBCUniversal News Group. Iversen serves as Discovery Officer at Stevens Institute of Technology.
“I’m delighted to welcome Catherine, Brian and Alice to the Local’s board,” said chair Kathleen Carroll. “They believe that a strong news organization is vital to our community. And they each have experience or ideas about connecting strong coverage to revenue growth, which is essential for the Local to thrive into the future.”
Read more here.
NOTE – further down in the story:
Brian Carovillano
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At NBCUniversal News Group, Carovillano leads a team that reviews content, reporting questions and all standards issues at NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC and Telemundo. He also is deeply involved in NBC News’ election and race-calling operations on primary and election nights.
Before joining NBC, he spent 21 years at The Associated Press as a reporter and editor in Rhode Island, Boston and San Francisco. He was the founding editor of the AP’s regional desk in Atlanta, then Asia-Pacific News Director in Bangkok, then national editor. As managing editor from 2017-2021, he supervised the AP’s journalism from around the world. He oversaw work honored with the profession’s highest awards.
Carovillano also led the expansion of AP’s news partnerships, grant-funded journalism and investigative reporting.
A native of Westfield, N.J., he has a B.A. in English from Colby College. After moving around for more than a decade, he settled in Montclair with his wife, daughter and son. Carovillano loves snowboarding, hiking, fishing and other outdoor pursuits, and is always on the hunt for good Thai food.
“I’m honored to join this distinguished group of trustees and to do what I can to help The Local continue to be an essential resource for Montclair,” Carovillano said. “It’s great to be part of a community that values local news.”
| Connecting wishes Happy Birthday |  | |
Stories of interest
A Final Word About My Husband, Dan (New York Times)
By Gail Collins
Opinion Columnist
My husband, Dan Collins, died this month. It was because of Covid and pneumonia. By the time he passed, Dan had been sedated for a while, and there’s a small controversy between me and my sisters over what was said the last time he and I actually exchanged words. It was either “I love you” or Dan’s claim that he was the one who ordered cans of salmon and vegetable for our dog.
Either one seems good. One of the great joys of a long marriage is how the personal and pragmatic moosh together.
We married in 1970, when we were living in Amherst, graduate students studying government at the University of Massachusetts. Dan, who had been drafted right out of college, always said that he’d signed up for the program because it would mean an early release from a deeply boring job processing forms for the Army.
My conservative parents were thrilled when I was home for vacation and received a picture of my new boyfriend in uniform and carrying a rifle, taken while he was finishing up some final piece of duty. They became less euphoric when they read his inscription: “Pfc. Daniel Collins awaits the next infringement of his civil liberties.”
Read more here. Shared by Michael Rubin, who said, "Gail Collins’ column on her husband. I know they worked for the osn but she’s been one of our favorite columnists for years."
Click here for Times' obituary story on Dan Collins.
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Rupert Murdoch’s Game of Thrones (New York Times)
By Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ravi Mattu, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, Lauren Hirsch, Ephrat Livni and Danielle Kaye
Rupert Murdoch is showing yet again that real life can be more fascinating than fiction.
News that the 93-year-old mogul is secretly waging war against three of his children — by seeking to change the terms of the irrevocable trust that oversees the family’s business empire — has gripped media watchers around the world.
The battle, which is taking place in a Nevada probate court and was first reported by The Times’s Jim Rutenberg and Jonathan Mahler, isn’t just a tale of familial strife. It’s about control of a global media business with extraordinary political power, one that’s still trying to preserve its influence in America and elsewhere.
The context: When Murdoch dies, control of the family’s companies, including the broadcaster Fox and the newspaper publisher News Corp, will be shared among his four eldest children via the trust.
Under the arrangement, Prudence, Lachlan, James and Elisabeth will each get an equal say in how the businesses are run.
Read more here. Shared by Dennis Conrad.
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OpenAI Is Launching Search Engine, Taking Direct Aim at Google (Wall Street Journal)
By Deepa Seetharaman
OpenAI is launching a test version of its long-awaited search engine, which it says will cite sources of information including news from business partners such as The Wall Street Journal parent News Corp NWSA -0.59%decrease; red down pointing triangle and the Atlantic magazine.
The tool, called SearchGPT, will summarize the information found on websites, including news sites, and let users ask follow-up questions, just as they can currently with OpenAI’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT. The sources are linked at the end of each answer in parentheses.
OpenAI also built a sidebar where it said users can see more results and sources with relevant information.
SearchGPT is OpenAI’s most direct challenge yet to Google’s dominance in search since the release of ChatGPT in 2022 caught the tech company flat-footed. Google this year widely rolled out its own AI search feature that synthesizes information from multiple web sources. Shares in Google-parent Alphabet GOOGL -3.10%decrease; red down pointing triangle fell by nearly 3% Thursday.
Other AI companies are also entering the search battle, including Perplexity, which is backed by Jeff Bezos and founded by a former OpenAI employee.
Read more here.
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AP classes, by the year...
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a listing of Connecting colleagues who have shared the year and the bureau where they started with the AP. If you would like to share your own information, I will include it in later postings. Current AP staffers are also welcome to share their information.)
NEWEST ADDITIONS:
Melinda Deslatte, Raleigh, 1999
Frank Hawkins, New York, 1967
Jim Reindl, Detroit, 1983
Suzanne Vlamis, New York, 1973
Cecilia White, LA, 1982
1951 - Norm Abelson (Boston)
1953 – Charles Monzella (Huntington, WVa)
1955 – Henry Bradsher (Atlanta), Paul Harrington (Boston), Joe McGowan (Cheyenne)
1957 - Louis Uchitelle (Philadelphia)
1958 – Roy Bolch (Kansas City)
1959 – Charlie Bruce (Montgomery)
1960 – Claude Erbsen (New York), Carl Leubsdorf (New Orleans)
1961 – Peter Arnett (Jakarta, Indonesia), Strat Douthat (Charleston. WVa), Warren Lerude (San Diego), Ed Staats (Austin)
1962 – Paul Albright (Cheyenne), Malcolm Barr Sr. (Honolulu), Myron Belkind (New York), Peggy Simpson (Dallas), Kelly Smith Tunney (Miami)
1963 – Hal Bock (New York)
1964 – Rachel Ambrose (Indianapolis), Larry Hamlin (Oklahoma City), John Lengel (Los Angeles), Ron Mulnix (Denver), Lyle Price (San Francisco), Arlene Sposato (New York), Hilmi Toros (New York)
1965 – Bob Dobkin (Pittsburgh), Harry Dunphy (Denver), John Gibbons (New York), Jim Luther (Nashville), Larry Margasak (Harrisburg), Rich Oppel (Tallahassee)
1966 – Shirley Christian (Kansas City), Mike Doan (Portland, OR), Edie Lederer (New York), Nancy Shipley (Nashville), Mike Short (Los Angeles), Marty Thompson (Seattle), Nick Ut (Saigon), Kent Zimmerman (Chicago)
1967 – Dan Berger (Los Angeles), Adolphe Bernotas (Concord), Lou Boccardi (New York), Linda Deutsch (Los Angeles), Don Harrison (Los Angeles), Frank Hawkins (New York), Doug Kienitz (Cheyenne), David Liu (New York), Bruce Lowitt (Los Angeles), Chuck McFadden (Los Angeles), Martha Malan (Minneapolis), Bill Morrissey (Buffalo), Larry Paladino (Detroit), Michael Putzel (Raleigh), Bruce Richardson (Chicago), Richard Shafer (Baltimore), Victor Simpson (Newark), Michael Sniffen (Newark), Kernan Turner (Portland, Ore)
1968 – Lee Balgemann (Chicago), John Eagan (San Francisco), Joe Galu (Albany/Troy), Peter Gehrig (Frankfurt), Charles Hanley (Albany), Jerry Harkavy (Portland, Maine), Herb Hemming (New York), Brian King (Albany), Samuel Koo (New York), Karren Mills (Minneapolis), Michael Rubin (Los Angeles), Rick Spratling (Salt Lake City), Barry Sweet (Seattle)
1969 - Ann Blackman (New York), Ford Burkhart (Philadelphia), Dick Carelli (Charleston, WVa), Dennis Coston (Richmond), Mary V. Gordon (Newark), Daniel Q. Haney (Portland, Maine), Mike Harris (Chicago), Brad Martin (Kansas City), David Minthorn (Frankfurt), Cynthia Rawitch (Los Angeles), Bob Reid (Charlotte), Mike Reilly (New York), Doug Tucker (Tulsa), Bill Winter (Helena)
1970 – Richard Boudreaux (New York), Richard Drew (San Francisco), Bob Egelko (Los Angeles), Steve (Indy) Herman (Indianapolis), Tim Litsch (New York), Lee Margulies (Los Angeles), Chris Pederson (Salt Lake City), Brendan Riley (San Francisco), Larry Thorson (Philadelphia)
1971 – Harry Atkins (Detroit), Jim Bagby (Kansas City), Larry Blasko (Chicago), Jim Carlson (Milwaukee), Jim Carrier (New Haven), Chris Connell (Newark), Bill Gillen (New York), Bill Hendrick (Birmingham), John Lumpkin (Dallas), Kendal Weaver (Montgomery)
1972 – Hank Ackerman (New York), Bob Fick (St. Louis), Joe Frazier (Portland, Ore.), Terry Ganey (St. Louis), Mike Graczyk (Detroit), Denis Gray (Albany), Lindel Hutson (Little Rock), Brent Kallestad (Sioux Falls), Tom Kent (Hartford), Nolan Kienitz (Dallas), Andy Lippman (Phoenix), Ellen Miller (Helena), Mike Millican (Hartford), Lew Wheaton (Richmond)
1973 - Jerry Cipriano (New York), Susan Clark (New York), Norm Clarke (Cincinnati), Jim Drinkard (Jefferson City), Joe Galianese (East Brunswick), Merrill Hartson (Richmond), Mike Hendricks (Albany), Tom Journey (Tucson), Steve Loeper (Los Angeles), Tom Slaughter (Sioux Falls), Jim Spehar (Denver), Paul Stevens (Albany), Jeffrey Ulbrich (Cheyenne), Owen Ullmann (Detroit), Suzanne Vlamis (New York), John Willis (Omaha), Evans Witt (San Francisco)
1974 – Norman Black (Baltimore), David Espo (Cheyenne), Dan George (Topeka), Robert Glass (Philadelphia), Steve Graham (Helena), Tim Harper (Milwaukee), Elaine Hooker (Hartford), Sue Price Johnson (Charlotte), Dave Lubeski (Washington), Janet McConnaughey (Washington), Lee Mitgang (New York), Barry Shlachter (Tokyo), Bud Weydert (Toledo), Marc Wilson (Little Rock)
1975 – Peter Eisner (Columbus), David Powell (New York), Eileen Alt Powell (Milwaukee)
1976 – Brad Cain (Chicago), Judith Capar (Philadelphia), Dick Chady (Albany), Steve Crowley (Washington), David Egner (Oklahoma City), Marc Humbert (Albany), Steven Hurst (Columbus), Richard Lowe (Nashville), John Nolan (Nashville), Charlotte Porter (Minneapolis), Chuck Wolfe (Charlotte)
1977 – Bryan Brumley (Washington), Robert Burns (Jefferson City), Charles Campbell (Nashville), Carolyn Carlson (Atlanta), Dave Carpenter (Philadelphia), Ken Herman (Dallas), Mike Holmes (Des Moines), Brad Kalbfeld (New York), Scott Kraft (Jefferson City), John Kreiser (New York), Peter Leabo (Dallas), Kevin LeBoeuf (Los Angeles), Ellen Nimmons (Minneapolis), Dan Sewell (Buffalo), Estes Thompson (Richmond), David Tirrell-Wysocki (Concord)
1978 – Tom Eblen (Louisville), Ruth Gersh (Richmond), Monte Hayes (Caracas), Doug Pizac (Los Angeles), Charles Richards (Dallas), Reed Saxon (Los Angeles), Steve Wilson (Boston)
1979 – Jim Abrams (Tokyo), Brian Bland (Los Angeles), Scotty Comegys (Chicago), John Daniszewski (Philadelphia), Frances D’Emilio (San Francisco), Pat Fergus (Albany), Brian Friedman (Des Moines), Sally Hale (Dallas), Jill Lawrence (Harrisburg), Warren Levinson (New York), Barry Massey (Kansas City), Phillip Rawls (Nashville), John Rice (Carson City), Linda Sargent (Little Rock), Joel Stashenko (Albany), Robert Wielaard (Brussels)
1980 – Alan Adler (Cleveland), Christopher Bacey (New York), Jeff Barnard (Providence), Mark Duncan (Cleveland), Bill Kaczor (Tallahassee), Mitchell Landsberg (Reno), Kevin Noblet (New Orleans), Jim Rowley (Baltimore), David Speer (Jackson), Hal Spencer (Providence), Carol J. Williams (Seattle)
1981 – Paul Davenport (Phoenix), Dan Day (Milwaukee), John Flesher (Raleigh), Len Iwanski (Bismarck), Ed McCullough (Albany), Drusilla Menaker (Philadelphia), Kim Mills (New York), Mark Mittelstadt (Des Moines), Roland Rochet (New York), Lee Siegel (Seattle), Marty Steinberg (Baltimore), Bill Vogrin (Kansas City)
1982 – Dorothy Abernathy (Little Rock), Al Behrman (Cincinnati), Tom Cohen (Jefferson City), John Epperson (Chicago), Ric Feld (Atlanta), Nick Geranios (Helena), Howard Gros (New Orleans), Robert Kimball (New York), Rob Kozloff (Detroit), Bill Menezes (Kansas City), David Ochs (New York), Cecilia White (Los Angeles)
1983 – Scott Charton (Little Rock), Sue Cross (Columbus), Mark Elias (Chicago), David Ginsburg (Washington), Diana Heidgerd (Miami), Sheila Norman-Culp (New York), Carol Esler Ochs (New York), Jim Reindl (Detroit), Amy Sancetta (Philadelphia), Rande Simpson (New York), Dave Skidmore (Milwaukee)
1984 – Owen Canfield (Oklahoma City), Wayne Chin (Washington), Jack Elliott (Oklahoma City), Kelly P. Kissel (New Orleans), Joe Macenka (Richmond), Eva Parziale (San Francisco), Walt Rastetter (New York), Keith Robinson (Columbus), Cliff Schiappa (Kansas City), David Sedeño (Dallas), Andrew Selsky (Cheyenne), Patty Woodrow (Washington)
1985 – Beth Grace (Columbus), Betty Kumpf Pizac (Los Angeles)
1986 – Joni Baluh Beall (Richmond), David Beard (Jackson), Tom Coyne (Columbia, SC), Dave DeGrace (Milwaukee), Alan Flippen (Louisville), Jim Gerberich (San Francisco), Howard Goldberg (New York), Mark Hamrick (Dallas), Sandy Kozel (Washington), Robert Meyers (London), David Morris (Harrisburg)
1987 – Donna Abu-Nasr (Beirut), Dave Bauder (Albany), Chuck Burton (Charlotte), Beth Harris (Indianapolis), Lynne Harris (New York), Steven L. Herman (Charleston, WVa), Elaine Kurtenbach (Tokyo), Rosemarie Mileto (New York), John Rogers (Los Angeles)
1988 – Chris Carola (Albany), Peg Coughlin (Pierre), Kathy Gannon (Islamabad), Steve Hart (Washington), Melissa Jordan (Sioux Falls), Bill Pilc (New York), Kelley Shannon (Dallas)
1989 – Ted Bridis (Oklahoma City), Charlie Arbogast (Trenton), Ron Fournier (Little Rock)
1990 – Frank Fisher (Jackson), Dan Perry (Bucharest), Steve Sakson (Baltimore), Sean Thompson (New York)
1991 – Amanda Kell (Richmond), Santiago Lyon (Cairo), Lisa Pane (Hartford), Ricardo Reif (Caracas), Bill Sikes (Buffalo)
1992 – Kerry Huggard (New York)
1993 – Jim Salter (St. Louis)
1995 – Elaine Thompson (Houston), Donna Tommelleo (Hartford)
1996 – Patricia N. Casillo (New York)
1997 – J. David Ake (Chicago), Pamela Collins (Dallas), Madhu Krishnappa Maron (New York), Jim Suhr (Detroit), Jennifer Yates (Baltimore)
1998 – Guthrie Collin (Albany)
1999 – Melinda Deslatte (Raleigh)
2000 – Gary Gentile (Los Angeles)
2006 – Jon Gambrell (Little Rock)
| Today in History - July 26, 2024 |  | |
Today is Friday, July 26, the 208th day of 2024. There are 158 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA, prohibiting discrimination based on mental or physical disabilities.
Also on this date:
In 1775, the Continental Congress established a Post Office and appointed Benjamin Franklin its Postmaster-General.
In 1847, the western African country of Liberia, founded by freed American slaves, declared its independence.
In 1863, Sam Houston, former president of the Republic of Texas, died in Huntsville at age 70.
In 1945, Winston Churchill resigned as Britain’s prime minister after his Conservatives were soundly defeated by the Labour Party. Clement Attlee succeeded him.
In 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act, which reorganized America’s armed forces as the National Military Establishment and created the Central Intelligence Agency.
In 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which desegregated the U.S. military.
In 1953, Fidel Castro began his revolt against Fulgencio Batista (fool-HEN’-see-oh bah-TEES’-tah) with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks in eastern Cuba. (Castro ousted Batista in 1959.)
In 1971, Apollo 15 was launched from Cape Kennedy on America’s fourth successful manned mission to the moon.
In 2002, the Republican-led House voted to create an enormous Homeland Security Department in the biggest government reorganization in decades.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be nominated for president by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
In 2018, the last six members of a Japanese doomsday cult who remained on death row were executed for a series of crimes in the 1990s, including a gas attack on Tokyo subways that killed 13 people.
In 2020, a processional with the casket of the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, where Lewis and other civil rights marchers were beaten 55 years earlier.
Today’s Birthdays: Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard is 85. Football Hall of Famer Bob Lilly is 85. Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Darlene Love is 83. Singer Brenton Wood is 83. The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger is 81. Actor Helen Mirren is 79. Rock musician Roger Taylor (Queen) is 75. Olympic gold medal figure skater Dorothy Hamill is 68. Actor Kevin Spacey is 65. Actor Sandra Bullock is 60. Actor Jeremy Piven is 59. Actor Jason Statham is 57. Actor Olivia Williams is 56. Actor Kate Beckinsale is 51. Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is 44. Actor Juliet Rylance is 44. Actor Monica Raymund is 38. Actor Francia Raisa is 36. Actor-singer Taylor Momsen is 31. Actor Elizabeth Gillies is 31. Actor Thomasin McKenzie is 24.
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Connecting is a daily newsletter published Monday through Friday that reaches more than 1,800 retired and former Associated Press employees, present-day employees, and news industry and journalism school colleagues. It began in 2013. Past issues can be found by clicking Connecting Archive in the masthead. Its author, Paul Stevens, retired from the AP in 2009 after a 36-year career as a newsman in Albany and St. Louis, correspondent in Wichita, chief of bureau in Albuquerque, Indianapolis and Kansas City, and Central Region vice president based in Kansas City.
Got a story to share? A favorite memory of your AP days? Don't keep them to yourself. Share with your colleagues by sending to Ye Olde Connecting Editor. And don't forget to include photos!
Here are some suggestions:
- Connecting "selfies" - a word and photo self-profile of you and your career, and what you are doing today. Both for new members and those who have been with us a while.
- Second chapters - You finished a great career. Now tell us about your second (and third and fourth?) chapters of life.
- Spousal support - How your spouse helped in supporting your work during your AP career.
- My most unusual story - tell us about an unusual, off the wall story that you covered.
- "A silly mistake that you make"- a chance to 'fess up with a memorable mistake in your journalistic career.
- Multigenerational AP families - profiles of families whose service spanned two or more generations.
- Volunteering - benefit your colleagues by sharing volunteer stories - with ideas on such work they can do themselves.
- First job - How did you get your first job in journalism?
- Most unusual place a story assignment took you.
Paul Stevens
Editor, Connecting newsletter
paulstevens46@gmail.com
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