Connecting
July 16, 2021



Click here for sound of the Teletype
Colleagues,
 
Good Friday morning on this July 16, 2021,
 
Robert Shaw impacted many lives in his 42 years with The Associated Press – more than half of them as an AP chief of bureau, in Oklahoma City, Indianapolis and Little Rock.
 
So it’s not surprising to see the outpouring of sorrow, respect and love that has resulted from news of his death early Thursday morning after a long illness.
 
Two of his “pupils” wrote excellent obituaries of their mentor – Linda Franklin Sargent, who worked for him as news editor in Oklahoma City, brings us the lead Connecting story on his death. And Jaime Stengle, AP Dallas newsman who Robert hired into the AP in Little Rock, wrote his obituary for the AP wire. Click here to view.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m., Saturday, July 24, at Smith North Little Rock Funeral Home with graveside services at Pinecrest Memorial Park in Alexander, Ark. Visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, July 23. If you would like to send an email or note to the family, please drop me a note and I’ll send you the address.
 
I was privileged to count Robert as a colleague and friend during our days as bureau chiefs and when, as a regional vice president, his Little Rock bureau was made part of my territory. I was honored to attend his retirement party in Little Rock in 2007 and witness firsthand the respect that he earned over his years of service.
 
I also got to meet his wife Joyce, the love of his life. They met while seniors at North Little Rock High School in 1959 and were married July 30, 1960. She was always a cheerful presence at functions of AP member newspaper editors and broadcasters as they moved seven times during Robert’s AP career. Joyce died in 2014 at the age of 73.
 
What kind of man was Robert? One of many examples: Linda spotted a Facebook post by Andy Harrist, son of veteran AP journalist Ron Harrist. Andy wrote: “Mr. Shaw and I spoke while my dad was in the hospital and after he passed away. I could tell from our conversations that he was a great man and know that my dad had a lot of respect for him. The newspaper in Heaven just got even better. His family will be in our prayers.
 
Robert was always proud that he was hired into the AP in St. Louis by Wick Temple, its correspondent at the time (1965) who would go on to positions as bureau chief, AP general sports editor, managing editor, and vice president for Human Resources and for Newspaper Membership. Wick died in 2003 but I know he would have been proud of all his Arkansas hire accomplished.
 
If you would like to join your colleagues with a favorite memory of Robert, send it along over the weekend for Monday’s edition.
 
Have a great weekend – be safe, stay healthy!
 
Paul


 
Robert Shaw dies: served AP for 42 years as newsman, correspondent, bureau chief
FILE - In this Sept. 20, 2005, file photo, Associated Press Vice President John Lumpkin, left, congratulates Little Rock Chief of Bureau Robert Shaw on the occasion of Shaw’s 40th AP anniversary in Little Rock, Ark. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston, File)
 
By LINDA FRANKLIN
 
Robert L. Shaw, who was bureau chief in three states during his more than 42 years with The Associated Press, died early Thursday surrounded by family in Lewisville, Texas. He was 79.
 
Shaw, a native of Conway, Ark., began his journalism career with the Arkansas Gazette in Little Rock where he became known for sound reporting. He was hired by Wick Temple, then the St. Louis correspondent, in 1965. That started a long and distinguished journey that took him from Missouri to Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Indiana and back to his home state of Arkansas.
 
He served as Chief of Bureau in Oklahoma City, Indianapolis and Little Rock over a span of 23 years from 1984 to 2007, when he retired.
 
Shaw covered hurricanes and tornadoes, legislatures, politics, courts, civil rights marches, sports and plane crashes. He directed staffs as they covered major news events and groundbreaking journalism for the AP, all the while focused on delivering the news quickly, accurately and thoroughly.
 
Shaw was respected for his strong skills in news coverage, recruiting journalists who would go on to long and successful careers, and working with AP members in each of the states where he led AP operations.
 
“He was very competent at his job, did it calmly, did it without fanfare and was widely respected both within the staff and outside the staff, among the members,” said former AP President Lou Boccardi.
 
Under his leadership, the Indianapolis bureau won the Associated Press Managing Editors’ National Enterprise Award for building a database of all 14,000 campaign contributions to members of the Indiana General Assembly in a single election cycle. The 1995 project was led by Evansville Correspondent Ted Bridis, who used the data to trace the influence of special-interest money in the state's lawmaking. Bridis went on to edit AP investigative projects in the Washington bureau.
Little Rock CoB Robert Shaw (left) explains a new AP photo service to Paragould Daily Press editor Richard Brummett in the Arkansas member’s newsroom. (2001 photo by Travis Justice/Daily Press, shared courtesy AP Corporate Archives)
 
In Oklahoma City, Shaw led the bureau’s coverage of the Edmond Post Office massacre in Edmond in 1986 where disgruntled postal worker Patrick Henry Sherrill killed 14 co-workers before taking his own life. The APME recognized the Oklahoma City Bureau for “Excellence in AP Reportorial Performance.”
 
As an AP reporter in Arkansas from 1966 to 1973, he teamed with Tommy Yates to cover a 1968 tornado that killed 30 and injured more than 200 in Jonesboro. They also covered a crisis in the Arkansas prison system.
 
Shaw also had his pants leg doused with lighter fluid and set on fire while he was in a phone booth calling in details of a 1969 civil rights march involving Lance Watson, also known as Sweet Willie Wine, Shaw’s son, Robbie, recalled.
Shaw covered the Arkansas gubernatorial election in 1970 in which Dale Bumpers defeated former Gov. Orval Faubus in the Democratic runoff and then Republican incumbent Winthrop Rockefeller.
 
Robbie also recalls his father being excited to give legendary Arkansas football coach Frank Broyles a ride but says Broyles slept the entire trip and his dad didn’t have a chance to ask him all the questions he wanted to.
 
As AP Correspondent in Memphis from 1973 to 1975, stories Shaw covered included a hearing in which James Earl Ray sought to withdraw his guilty plea in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
 
Named correspondent in Jackson in 1975, Shaw led the bureau’s coverage of the state capitol as well as the 1977 crash that killed three members of the Southern rock group Lynryd Skynyrd in Mississippi and the 1979 Category 4 Hurricane Frederic. He returned to Memphis as part of the team covering Elvis Presley’s death.
 
Robbie Shaw recalled how he and his sister, Erin Moore, couldn’t stay on the phone talking to friends long when they lived in Jackson because the family didn’t have call waiting. Once they did, he can remember answering an incoming call from then Gov. William Winter for his dad.
 
The Mississippi Legislature passed a resolution in 1984 recognizing Shaw’s promotion to Oklahoma City Chief of Bureau, saying it “represented one more step in a journalistic career which is marked by even-handed perceptive reporting.” The nod to “perceptive reporting” echoed a description from his earliest days.
 
Under Shaw’s leadership, the Oklahoma City team also covered a deadly bank robbery in Geronimo, the trial of Bill Patterson in the collapse of Penn Square Bank, and a fireworks factory explosion that killed 21.
 
The move to Indianapolis in 1989 took him to a busy news bureau with Fortune 500 companies and a major sports load that included the NFL Colts, the NBA Pacers and the Indianapolis 500, the granddaddy of motorsports racing.
 
Among other major Indiana stories covered during Shaw’s tenure was the April 8, 1990, death of Ryan White, the Kokomo teenager whose battle with AIDS was an ongoing national story. He became infected from a contaminated blood treatment and was denied the right to attend school. White was one of a handful of highly visible people who helped change the public perception of the disease.
 
The bureau also covered the trial of heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, who was convicted of rape in Indianapolis in 1992 and sentenced to six years in prison. He was released on parole after three years.
 
On Oct. 31, 1994, the staff covered the crash of American Eagle Flight 4184 in a field at Roselawn, Indiana, in which 68 people died.
 
He was named bureau chief in Little Rock in 1996 just days after President Bill Clinton won his second term. Shaw’s staff helped in the coverage of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation involving the president in his home state, along with the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Clinton by former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones.
 
He also directed the Little Rock bureau’s 1999 coverage of the fatal crash of American Airlines Flight 1420 on a runway during a hailstorm.
 
Erin Moore says her father loved history. She can recall him talking about being at the airport in Little Rock in 1952 when Gen. Douglas MacArthur returned to his birthplace.
 
That love of history and sports along with an introduction to journalism by his high school teacher Katie Lou Russell helped shape Shaw’s future.
 
Moore said her father was always so humble, gracious, caring and a champion for people. She recalled how he once won a football signed by all the Dallas Cowboys but gave the ticket to the person seated next to him.
 
Shaw graduated from Little Rock University, which later became the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He served as the UALR alumnae president for two years.
 
He was preceded in death by his wife of 54 years, Joyce Shaw, and his parents AG and Leola Shaw. Survivors include his sister, Betty Dent, of Maumelle, Ark.; son, Robbie, of North Little Rock; daughter Erin Moore (Dwight) of Flower Mound, Texas; grandchildren Allison Abromitis of Ocean Springs, Miss., Caitlin Moore Bowlus (Eric); Haley Moore; Ashlyn Moore, all of Flower Mound; Madison Shaw and Mason Shaw, both of North Little Rock and two great-granddaughters, Marin Joyce Bowlus and Bryliee Shaw, and a great-grandson expected in November.
 
Funeral will be at 11 a.m., Saturday, July 24, at Smith North Little Rock Funeral Home with graveside services at Pinecrest Memorial Park in Alexander, Arkansas. Visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, July 23.
 
Pallbearers will be Robbie Shaw, Haley Moore, Dwight Moore, Matt Karpoff, Eric Bowlus and Mason Shaw.
 
In honor of Robert's legacy, donations are being accepted to fund an advocacy group providing resources to families for managing their loved one's memory care journey.
 
Your memories of Robert Shaw
 
Jacqui Cook, who worked in the Indianapolis bureau from 1991-1994:

He was my very first boss in my very first "real" job after college - and he was perfectly suited for it. He made it clear from the start, in his stern-but-kind Arkansas voice, that this was the AP and I was going to work hard. He wasn't kidding - but I also learned so much working with him as the COB. He knew when to jump in and steer the story and, most often, how to stand back and let the staff do our jobs under his watchful eye. He read everything and never hesitated to point out what was good and what could have been better. There would always be red circles in the printed-out report from the night before so you could see the typos that found their way onto the wire! 
 
 
But more than anything, I remember Robert as a true champion for his staff. When I wanted to go to the General Desk as my next stop, he did everything to make that happen. He introduced me to GEN people coming through Indy, he helped me write (and rewrite and rewrite) my application letter and, once I got there, he would check in just to see how it was going. He was a good man, through and through, and a wonderful mentor and boss for a youngster arriving in a new town to start a career. You don't find many people like Robert anymore. He's going to be missed. 
 
-0-
 
Doug Ferguson, AP Golf Writer:

Robert hired me as a legislative relief staffer in Oklahoma City in 1987 -- "We have white smoke," was what he said when he reached the dubious decision -- and was such a strong presence in the bureau. He was a pure journalist at heart, whether he was on the road meeting with members or stepping out of that corner office to oversee breaking news.
 
Teaching moments were not in short supply. Along with giving me an opportunity to work for the AP, he didn't just bury me on night broadcast. There was one week he sent me on the road for a series of features across Oklahoma to hone interview skills and observations and teach me about travel. "Check in with us at the end each day to let us know how it's going," he said. I went off to Hugo, the winter headquarters for the circus companies. I went to Krebs for a story on Italian immigrants who came to Oklahoma to mine coal and started a family restaurant (when people ask me for the best Italian I've had, I tell them Pete's Place in Krebs, Oklahoma. True), and an Amish community that made carriages. It was a worthwhile trip, and when I returned to report how it went, Robert waited until I was done jabbering and said firmly under that moustache, "It would have been nice to know this last week. We never heard from you." The message: I forgot to check in.
 
I worked under him for two years before he took over as COB in Indianapolis, but the lessons stayed with me for the next 30.
 
-0-
 
Owen Canfield, former Oklahoma City sports editor:

Robert hired me in Oklahoma City in 1984 and, a year later, named me sports editor for Oklahoma. I went on to cover five Olympics, and several Final Fours and NCAA basketball regionals in 19 years with the AP. I'm indebted to Robert for that.
 
-0-
 
Patrick Casey, former Oklahoma City staffer:

Robert hired me out of the Arkansas Democrat in Little Rock where I was working as an assistant city editor to join the AP in Oklahoma City in January 1987. That buro had covered the Edmond, Okla., post office massacre with distinction the previous summer and I was excited that Robert picked me to join his staff. Robert patiently taught me the AP way of doing things and was a stickler for details. He was also excellent at correctly making crucial calls during elections, tornadoes and other major stories. Robert later left for Indianapolis but he set a standard that I never forgot. RIP Robert.
 
-0-
 
Rochelle Hines, former Oklahoma City AP staffer: 

Robert Shaw helped me get on as an intern at The Associated Press in 1988. He was so kind to me, he even gave me a ride home a few times, since I was a very broke student without a car. I am so grateful to him for his assistance, because without it, I wouldn't have had a career at the AP.
 
-0-
 
Elaine Hooker, a former bureau chief and executive in AP Membership: 
 
Robert Shaw was a joy to work with when I was in Newspaper Membership. He has such a gentle manner and was incredibly knowledgeable and hard-working. The members in the various states where he worked were indeed fortunate to have Robert as a newsman and as their ally.
 
-0-
 
Lindel Hutson, former Oklahoma City Bureau Chief
 
I first saw Robert Shaw in action on May 16, 1968. That was the day after a killer tornado ripped through Jonesboro, AR where I was a college student and part-time reporter/photographer for the local daily, The Sun.
 
Robert was working from the newspaper and I was impressed that someone could hammer out a story and dictate it as quickly as he did. Watching Robert that day helped me decide I wanted to work for AP.
 
Fast forward four years. I was hired by AP in Little Rock and the first person to step up and help out the new guy was Robert. If I had questions, he had answers. If I was frustrated, he picked me up. I was happy for him when he moved to Jackson as correspondent, but disappointed to see him go.
 
I was news editor in Indianapolis when Robert was named bureau chief. We only worked together a few short weeks before I replaced him in Oklahoma City as COB.
 
It was an easy transition for me: Robert, as expected, had things squared away in OKC. We talked often, and those conversations were invaluable. It was like the old days in Arkansas. He was there when I needed him.
 
He was intense. He was professional. He was a top rate newsman and administrator, one of the gifted people who made AP tick.
 
The time I spent with Robert was special. I feel privileged to say he was my friend and mentor. I will miss him.
 
-0-
 
John Lumpkin, former AP Vice President:

“My friend Robert was as pure an AP stalwart as anyone could have been. He went about the critical dual responsibilities of the bureau chiefs of his era - leading the news report and securing AP’s financial resources - with an idealistic fervor. He was comfortable in his understated way with an unconventional AP corporate director in his territory and the wire editor at a local paper. I never heard him say a negative word about his staff, the AP members in his territory, or (wow) NY management. Who among us can say that about ourselves?”
 
-0-
 
Tim O’Neil, who now lives in St. Louis:

Robert ran the AP office in Jackson with a quiet fatherly exasperation. As with most AP offices, workdays were hectic, filled with the obligatory features -- radio splits, the noonday chicken slaughter report -- mixed in with chasing breaking stories in remote places by phone. Robert was a skilled reporter and writer, somebody who already had been there and done that, which gave us confidence in his leadership. He was an old-time player-manager, jumping in and working the stories of the day as a fellow professional, offering advice or issuing directions only as necessary. 
 
When he'd get frustrated with a challenge while writing, he'd sit back, scratch the top of his head and then plunge back into his furious style of typing. Sometimes, when a funny thought struck him, he'd stop, laugh heartily and get back to work. 
 
He was our friend. He joined the rest of the Jackson news crowd after work at the old George Street Grocery, bartended by a tall, quiet man nicknamed Cotton. We all drank and smoked more than we should have. I'd visit his family now and then, and his wife, Joyce, became my Mississippi surrogate mother.  
 
Robert did not hesitate to tell us when we made mistakes, but he also was quick with encouragement and praise when deserved. He also was profoundly merciful. When I applied at the Jackson office and managed to flunk the AP psychology test by putting the answers on the wrong part of the page, he called me while I was visiting my family back home in St. Louis and told me to drive pronto to the bureau downtown and take it again. The boss there was waiting for me. 
 
And when he probably should have fired me, he didn't. 
 
One story proves that point. I was about 24, as was the other junior member at AP Jackson, We were on a softball team with guys from the two Jackson newspapers, and there was a big game one Sunday morning in 1975. We both went into the office early, cleaned out the Jackson paper, prepared the Monday AMs report and the radio splits, and contacted Atlanta to make sure it all was ready in the regional computer. We headed for our game. 
 
We ambled back into the office to find Shaw at the phone and terminal, desperately trying to catch up with UPI on a national story. While we played softball, a man walked up to the pulpit of a big church on the Gulf Coast that broadcast its services live on TV. He had a pistol and his dog. He shoved the pastor aside and began a rambling speech. He shot the dog and, I believe, shot himself. 
 
New York general desk repeatedly called AP Jackson and got nobody, then called Robert at home. He hustled down to office and began trying to recover. When we walked in, he stared at us for a moment, told us to get to work and got back to his typing. Side by side, we worked the phones and assembled a story.  
 
Afterward or the next morning, he told us calmly but clearly that we had better never, ever be that stupid again. Spared by his forgiveness, we both remained with the AP and managed lifelong careers in the news business. 
 
I have no memory of how the game turned out. 
 
The bottom line is that he was the best boss I ever had.
 
-0-
 
Jeff Rowe, former Jackson newsman:
 
Robert was the fastest news writer I ever saw. At the Jackson, Mississippi bureau, a cramped concrete cavern in the basement of an office building, he would dash in from covering something at the legislature, shirt half untucked, tie yanked loose and notebook in hand so as not to waste any time taking it out of his pocket. He would spend 30 seconds flipping through his notes and then type like a man possessed, taking just fleeting pauses to check his notes. I'd not seen anyone that fast; all these years later, I still have not witnessed anyone close to Robert's speed.
 
Robert -- never "Bob," "Robby" or any other shortened form -- was the correspondent, the lead of our five-person bureau. He could be demanding, given to wall-pounding when frustrated, and lacked the diplomatic skills expected of leaders today. But he was born to be a reporter and set an example for me, the most junior staffer, in asking open-ended questions, always in a professional and respectful fashion, and then writing with precision and focus.
 
Typos were a particular annoyance of Robert's and his keen attention to them was a lesson I carried throughout my journalism career. 
 
Robert greatly enjoyed after-hours socializing and talking about journalism at a bar near the bureau and capitol and frequented by Clarion-Ledger reporters. 
 
It was clear to me from day one in the Jackson bureau that Robert was completely dedicated to the ideals and mission of the Associated Press. That mattered more than perhaps he knew -- it reinforced and elevated the worth of our work every day.


-0-

 
Bob Seavey, former Indianapolis newsman
 
I was lucky that Robert Shaw was the COB when I worked in Indy in the early 90s, and he set a nice tone for rest of my AP career. Friendly, good natured, a great guy who loved to talk about journalism fundamentals, spiced up by his adventures with AP Little Rock. He once invited me to an Indianapolis Colts game - taking pity on a poor newsman but also making him feel valued as an employee. He’ll be missed by many. 
 
-0- 
 
Mike Smith, former Indiana AP Statehouse Correspondent

To this day, I am still doing what I love to do – writing and reporting – in the place of my dreams, Montana, with the foundation I got at AP, especially the early years under Lindel Hutson and Robert Shaw. In this business, that is gold.
 
Robert not only hired me on permanently in Indianapolis, he sent me to the Statehouse as the No. 2 reporter and shortly after that, made me the correspondent. Robert was just a damn solid newsman, and though naturally demanding, he backed his reporters 100 percent at all times.
 
I can’t recall the big breaking event, but it was national news coming from Indy, and I was on the desk trying to answer questions from an editor on the general desk. When that turned to shouting from New York, and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, Robert grabbed the phone from my hand and just blasted whoever it was on the other end.
 
He not only defended me, he told the person to get off our backs and let us gather the news, that we were doing a damn good job, and they would know details within seconds after we knew them. I can’t believe I can’t remember the event, but I will never forget that as an example of an editor or bureau chief backing his troops. THAT was Robert Shaw.
 
I also remember that Robert, being an old Statehouse hound himself, LOVED to talk state politics when I was in the bureau. He’d ask me into his office, ask for details about what was going on at the time, and share recollections from his days. And I always took something away, usually perspective, that I could use going forward.
 
From the moment he took a chance on me and hired me, Robert Shaw was in my corner, and helped instill in me a confidence in this profession I still have today.

-0-

Comments from Hank Ackerman in 2005 upon Robert’s 40th anniversary:
 
“During those days we shared many years ago in Mississippi and Louisiana, you worked diligently at leading a strong news team in Jackson covering elections, hurricanes, errant governors, and newspaper takeovers. As a result of your efforts, your excellent writing, strong leadership, and your collegial approach, AP came to dominate in the newsrooms and broadcast stations throughout the state. Robert Shaw, Jackson Correspondent, and his team were highly recognized by all.”
Connecting series:
Restoring the public's trust in the media
 
Ed McCullough (Email) - "Restoring" people's trust is a goal misstated, perhaps intentionally. The idea that there was a halcyon time when "the public" (how about "people") trusted "news" media is a myth which news media (among few others) perpetuate. There might have been relative, temporary trust on occasions when government, Big Business or whatever obviously were lying or scheming and news media documented and reported facts in the public interest. But any general premise that whatever news media produced was on its face true, complete, neutral - is dubious. The notion that's it's possible to "return" to something that never existed, self-indulgent.
 
Where, specifically, is news media today failing? Probably not in sports stories about Team A beating Team B by so many points. Nor in business stories about Company X's stock price rising (or falling) by $Y on the stock exchange. Or tomorrow's weather, yesterday's obituaries; comics, advertising.
 
Rock bottom trust in news media relates primarily (in my view) to a.) one-sided political reporting that is not acknowledged to be one-sided; b.) presenting news of all sorts through social filters (race, for example) instead of on its own; and by c.) editorial comment masquerading as news. How to "restore" any trust at all? Be honest, complete and true with news audiences; openly state reporting biases and prejudices; and clearly separate fact from opinion.
 
It's sobering to watch how all of a sudden, stories from just a year ago by the self-same national news "leaders" are flipped on their heads. Turns out that 2020 presidential election polls were way off (though last year were presented as accurate predictors). The coronavirus indeed may track back to the Wuhan laboratory (somehow that's OK to say because the current U.S. president and secretary-general of the WHO now accept what they had denied). Urban demonstrations that resulted in arson, violence, homicide and now claims for billions of dollars in federal rebuilding aid were not peaceful after all - or by last year's rationale, perhaps the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol was.
 
Looking forward, if news media can't describe as a "crisis" the illegal immigration at the U.S. southern border until/unless the Biden administration uses that term, why should people trust reporting that differs from what they can see with their own eyes. If every previous experience of a government printing absurd amounts of currency resulted in inflation, why should anyone believe news reports focused on proponents of that activity.
 
Restoring any trust in news media is a long way off and seeking a magical return to never-never land seems wishful thinking.
 
On the key to success in AP
 
Marc Wilson (Email) - I enjoyed Bruce Handler’s contribution to Connecting that (in a bygone era) the key to success in the AP is to “…just end every sentence with ‘state police said.’”
 
I remember an AP story from many years ago that read: “A bomb scare was called into The Associated Press Pittsburgh bureau, police said.”
 
I thought that was over-doing attribution, but today the media – including the AP -- seem to have forgotten the great benefits of attribution.
 
I remember the saying: “I’d like to see the opinion that backs up your facts.”
 
Media credibility could be helped with more attribution, especially of “facts” of which not everyone agrees.
 
-0-
 
Adolphe Bernotas (Email) - Bruce Handler wonders whether a supposedly legendary staffer's advice about a long AP career is real: “just end every sentence with '...state police said Monday.'"
 
Concord Bureau legend had it that a Gen Desk editor known to be fanatically fond of attribution, wanted more attribution in a story and reamed out a staffer who responded, "just say 'police said.'” But the best bureau story about attribution claims that a writer flustered by the Gen Desk's demands for additional attribution replied: “How about 'Today is Monday, police said.'”
 
-0-
 
Lyle Price (Email): Re the remark in Thursday's Connecting from Bruce Handler re being advised by a veteran Portland Oregon AP staffer in 1967 that he'd never go wrong by ending with an attribution of "state police said."

When I started with AP in San Francisco in 1964, an absolute emphasis was on attributing information to the news source, with citing a name never being a bad idea. Nor do I consider it a bad concept for today's media. Per the policy as I understood it in my dozen years at AP, the use of anonymous sources was I think sometimes allowed (but not encouraged) for sources who stipulated anonymity for their safety or their job security--and reporters and editors were convinced were speaking the truth. And, of course, official, on-the-record responses would be sought if they could be located--plus whatever company or government agency might be involved would be asked for comment. I don't recall any instance when I wanted to use an anonymous source at AP, but I did do maybe a couple of times when I subsequently covered the state legislature in Washington State for a number of years at a daily newspaper. I preferred to use "sources say" but in the case of something sensational, a great specificity would be in order.
My favorite story about attribution involved a sports story supposedly written by the late Dick Bieser, who was on the AP staff in Los Angeles during some of the years I was there. Dick was a competent journalist but not much up on sports. So came the time--so I was told--that Dick on a night shift got a report on a California League game which during baseball season the LA staff had to crank out after getting a report from a news source that might be a stringer but supposedly in at least one case was from a team itself.
The report was like: "The Modesto --- defeated the Salinas --- Tuesday night 3-2, according to Manager blank-blank-blank." I can't swear to the truth of that, but I can say I've told that tale many times over the years and that in my day it didn't strike AP staffers as impossible.
 
AP BBQ seasoning
Michael Weinfeld (Email) - When you want to put a newsmaker’s feet to the fire, use AP BBQ seasoning.
 
AP Global Media Services offers Tokyo live reporting solutions
AP GMS stand-up position outside National Stadium, Tokyo. (AP Photo)
 
AP Global Media Services (GMS), the production arm of The Associated Press, will offer multiple on-air reporting solutions for broadcasters and publishers in several languages at the upcoming Tokyo Summer Games.
 
Through custom live shots and exclusive stand-up positions, GMS is equipped to deliver live reporting capabilities in Tokyo for news outlets across the globe.
 
Experienced broadcast journalists are available for custom live reports and bespoke edited packages in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and Luxembourgish. AP Sports reporters covering the games are also available for live interviews in English.
 
GMS will provide exclusive live stand-up positions in Tokyo featuring the new National Stadium and Zojoji Temple and Tokyo Tower. These locations do not require IOC accreditation to access and are included in the official Activity Plan for media covering the Games.
 
Read more here.
 
Connecting Regional Reunion: September in Texas - Plus a bonus event!
 
You are invited to attend the Sept. 18-19, 2021, AP Connecting Regional Reunion in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.    
 
Co-hosts are Mike Holmes of Omaha, Brent Kallestad of Tallahassee and Diana Heidgerd of Dallas. To register, email Diana at heidgerd@flash.net   

Please register by Aug. 2. Pay your own way. All events are casual attire.   
 
Registration list: (will be updated): 
-- Amanda Barnett
-- Joei Bohr & Mark Woolsey
-- Sally Carpenter Hale & Rick Hale
-- Pam & Frank Collins
-- Schuyler Dixon
-- Diana & Paul Heidgerd
-- Mike Holmes
-- Brent Kallestad
-- Charles & Barbara Richards
-- Rod Richardson & Kia Breaux Richardson
-- Kelley Shannon
-- David & Ellen Sedeño
-- Terry Wallace & Liz Eaton
 
Group events include a Tex-Mex dinner Saturday night, Sept. 18, and going to the Texas Rangers vs. Chicago White Sox game on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 19, at retractable-roof Globe Life Field in Arlington. Baseball tickets are $45 each and must be reserved in advance via Diana. Hotel information is below.
 
Bonus Reunion Event! Friday night, Sept. 17:

David and Ellen Sedeño of Dallas have graciously offered a suggestion (for reunion early arrivals or those who live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area) -- join them for dinner Friday night at their family’s BBQ restaurant, located about 15 minutes north of the reunion hotel.
 
Meat U Anywhere BBQ
919 W. Northwest Highway
Grapevine, Texas 76051
817-251-1227
Time: 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 17. BYOB.
Please RSVP to hosts David & Ellen: david@meatuanywhere.com
 
Group hotel: 
SpringHill Suites Dallas DFW Airport South/CentrePort, rates $109-$114 per night, plus taxes & fees. Available Sept. 15-20 for AP Reunion group. Register by Aug. 2 to get the discounted AP Reunion rate.  
 
See you in September!
Connecting wishes Happy Birthday

On Saturday to…
 
Carolyn Lessard - clessard@ap.org
 
On Sunday to…
 
Chris Tomlinson - chris_tomlinson@usa.net
 
Bill Welch - wwelch@outlook.com

Stories of interest
 
Gunman found criminally responsible for killing 5 at paper (AP)
Montana Geimer, daughter of Wendi Winters, a community beat reporter who died in the Capital Gazette newsroom shooting, reacts during a press conference following a verdict in the trial of Jarrod W. Ramos, Thursday, July 15, 2021, in Annapolis, Md. The jury found the gunman who killed five people at the newspaper criminally responsible, rejecting defense attorneys' mental illness arguments. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
 
By BRIAN WITTE
 
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A jury on Thursday found the gunman who killed five people at a Maryland newspaper criminally responsible for his actions, rejecting defense attorneys’ mental illness arguments.
 
The verdict means Jarrod Ramos will be sentenced to prison, not a maximum-security mental health facility, for one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in the U.S. Prosecutors are seeking five life sentences without the possibility of parole.
 
The jury needed less than two hours to find that Ramos, 41, could understand the criminality of his actions and conform his conduct to the requirements of the law when he attacked the Capital Gazette newsroom in 2018.
 
Survivors and family members of victims, some with tears in their eyes, embraced outside the courtroom and applauded prosecutors and jurors as they walked by after the verdict.
 
“It’s been a never-ending nightmare,” said Cindi Rittenour, the sister of Rebecca Smith, who died in the attack. “And then hearing that today — just all my anxiety over it, all the wonderings, the unknowns, it’s all gone away now, and all I feel is just relief and happiness. I feel like my sister can finally start to rest in peace.”
 
Read more here. Shared by Sibby Christensen, Adolphe Bernotas.
 
-0-
 
Dutch crime reporter Peter de Vries dies after shooting (Guardian)
 
By JON HENLEY
 
The Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries has died just over a week after he was shot in the head in central Amsterdam, the veteran journalist’s family said in a statement released to local media.
 
“Peter fought to the end but was unable to win the battle,” the statement said, according to RTL Nieuws. “He died surrounded by the people who love him. Peter lived by his conviction: ‘On bended knee is no way to be free.’”
 
The statement continued: “We are proud of him beyond words, and at the same time inconsolable. His family, partner and loved ones want to process his death in peace and urge everyone to respect that.”
 
De Vries, a household name in the Netherlands, was shot five times – including at least once in the head – at about 7.45pm local time (1845 BST) on 6 July, while on his way to a car park on the Lange Leidsedwarsstraat after leaving a nearby TV studio. He was 64.
 
Read more here.
Celebrating AP's 175th
AP store for 175th, vintage merchandise
The AP has created a store with 175th anniversary merchandise available for purchase, as well as items branded with some of AP’s most historic logos. The site is temporarily down and will be reinstituted in Connecting soon.
AP Through Time: A Photographic History
AP Through Time: A Photographic History” - created by Director of Corporate Archives, Valerie Komor, is a keepsake commemorating AP’s 175th year. Small in size (6 ¾ x 6 ¾ in.), it is organized chronologically in eight segments that trace the broad outlines of AP’s development from 1846 to the present: Beginnings, Evolution, New Century, Modernity, Expansion, One World, Speed, and Transformation. Click here to view and make an order.

AP at 175 video

This video celebrates the unique role AP has played since 1846.
Today in History - July 16, 2021
By The Associated Press
Today is Friday, July 16, the 197th day of 2021. There are 168 days left in the year.
 
Today’s Highlight in History:
 
On July 16, 1790, a site along the Potomac River was designated the permanent seat of the United States government; the area became Washington, D.C.
 
On this date:
 
In 1909, the Audi auto company was founded in Zwickau, Germany, by August Horch.
 
In 1945, the United States exploded its first experimental atomic bomb in the desert of Alamogordo (ahl-ah-moh-GOHR’-doh), New Mexico; the same day, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis left Mare (mar-AY’) Island Naval Shipyard in California on a secret mission to deliver atomic bomb components to Tinian Island in the Marianas.
 
In 1951, the novel “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger was first published by Little, Brown and Co.
 
In 1964, as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination in San Francisco, Barry M. Goldwater declared that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” and that “moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
 
In 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on the first manned mission to the surface of the moon.
 
In 1980, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan won the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Detroit.
 
In 1994, the first of 21 pieces of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smashed into Jupiter, to the joy of astronomers awaiting the celestial fireworks.
 
In 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette (bih-SEHT’), died when their single-engine plane, piloted by Kennedy, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
 
In 2002, the Irish Republican Army issued an unprecedented apology for the deaths of “noncombatants” over 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.
 
In 2004, Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison and five months of home confinement by a federal judge in New York for lying about a stock sale.
 
In 2008, Florida resident Casey Anthony, whose 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, had been missing a month, was arrested on charges of child neglect, making false official statements and obstructing a criminal investigation. (Casey Anthony was later acquitted at trial of murdering Caylee, whose skeletal remains were found in December 2008; she was convicted of lying to police.)
 
In 2015, a jury in Centennial, Colorado, convicted James Holmes of 165 counts of murder, attempted murder and other charges in the 2012 Aurora movie theater rampage that left 12 people dead. A gunman unleashed a barrage of fire at a recruiting center and another U.S. military site a few miles apart in Chattanooga, Tennessee, killing four Marines and a sailor before he was shot to death by police; authorities identified the gunman as Kuwaiti-born Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez of Tennessee.
 
Ten years ago: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez left his country for Cuba to begin chemotherapy, vowing to win his fight against cancer and calling for his political allies to stay united in his absence. (Chavez, who would undergo additional cancer surgery and treatment in Cuba, died in March 2013.)
 
Five years ago: Republican presidential nominee-apparent Donald Trump formally introduced his running mate, Mike Pence, during an event in New York, hailing the Indiana governor as his “first choice” and his “partner in the campaign” a day after announcing the selection on Twitter. Basketball Hall of Famer Nate Thurmond, 74, died in San Francisco.
 
One year ago: The coronavirus surged in hot spots around the country; Florida reported nearly 14,000 new cases. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp sued the city of Atlanta over the city’s COVID-19 restrictions, including the requirement to wear masks in public; Kemp said local governments couldn’t impose measures that were more or less restrictive than statewide executive orders, which didn’t require masks. (Kemp dropped the lawsuit in August.) Target, CVS Health and Publix Super Markets joined the growing list of major retailers requiring customers to wear masks. Oakland’s City Council authorized $32.7 million in payments to settle lawsuits over a 2016 fire that killed 36 people at an illegally converted warehouse during an electronic music party.
 
Today’s Birthdays: Soul singer William Bell is 82. International Tennis Hall of Famer Margaret Court is 79. College Football Hall of Famer and football coach Jimmy Johnson is 78. Violinist Pinchas Zukerman is 73. Actor-singer Ruben Blades is 73. Rock composer-musician Stewart Copeland is 69. Playwright Tony Kushner is 65. Actor Faye Grant is 64. Dancer Michael Flatley is 63. Actor Phoebe Cates is 58. Actor Paul Hipp is 58. Actor Daryl “Chill” Mitchell is 56. Actor-comedian Will Ferrell is 54. Actor Jonathan Adams is 54. College and Pro Football Hall of Famer Barry Sanders is 53. Actor Rain Pryor is 52. Actor Corey Feldman is 50. Rock musician Ed Kowalczyk (koh-WAHL’-chek) (Live) is 50. Rock singer Ryan McCombs (Drowning Pool) is 47. Actor Jayma Mays is 42. Actor AnnaLynne McCord is 34. Actor-singer James Maslow is 31. Actor Mark Indelicato is 27. Pop singer-musician Luke Hemmings (5 Seconds to Summer) is 25.

Got a story or photos to share?
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:

- 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?

- 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.

Most unusual place a story assignment took you.

Paul Stevens
Editor, Connecting newsletter
paulstevens46@gmail.com