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Connecting
May 06, 2021
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Colleagues,
Good Thursday morning on this the 6th day of May 2021,
If you have been following intros of the past two issues: May the 4th be with you (on May 4, Star Wars Day), and May the 5th be with you (containing your favorite bourbon), well, our colleague Sister Donalda Kehoe (Email) suggests this:
A first blush response to your greeting this morning. “He who goes forth with a fifth on the Fourth, will not be able to go forth on the Fifth.” – Sister Donalda.
He loved the AP…and Connecting: The day before he died (at 98) on April 29, our Milwaukee colleague Bob O’Meara opened the April 28 issue of Connecting on his iPad, according to his daughter Anne O’Meara Stillwell. “He indeed loved his career,” I wrote Anne in response, a tear in my eye. “Yes. And he loved Connecting,” she responded.
Steve Casey, professor of international studies at the London School of Economics, has done research for several of his books at the AP Corporate Archives, according to our colleague Francesca Pitaro, who pointed me to his latest book: “The War Beat, Pacific” that has just been published. It’s a companion volume to his previous book: “The War Beat, Europe,” published in 2017.
At my request, Steve provided Connecting with a synopsis of the book that includes numerous references to the AP. It is one of our lead stories in today’s issue.
And speaking of books, our colleague Andy Lippman has a recommendation to make. Read on.
Have a great day – be safe, stay healthy!
Paul
Brian Horton’s tribute to his wife – and fight against MS
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Andy Lippman (Email) - Connecting has promoted some terrific books over the years.
I just received my copy of "beaches, bays & back roads" the photo album Brian Horton put together in memory of his wife Marilyn Dillon, who died in March 2020.
It is wonderful. Order one. You may have already read about it in an earlier issue of Connecting, but it's worth another shout-out now that the book is out.
Everyone who knows him knows that Brian's love for photography is exceeded only by his love for Mar. The book not only reflects a photographic collection of the places they enjoyed together, but it has such a heartfelt loving recollection of their time together. If the photos don't touch your spirit, I dare you not to be moved by the words Brian wrote about his wife..
The book is free and funds collected go to the Robert Wood Johnson Center for MS, which treated Mar. You can email Brian to order a copy of the book, and send along a contribution and say a prayer in honor of this remarkable couple and in memory of a delightful and courageous woman. Brian's email is - [email protected]
The center's address is RWJ Center for MS, Clinical Academic Building, Suite 6100, 125 Paterson St., New Brunswick, N.J. 08901. Donations should be made in honor of Marilyn Dillon.
THE WAR BEAT, PACIFIC:
THE AMERICAN MEDIA AT WAR AGAINST JAPAN
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2021)
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AP reporters in the Philippines. Clark Lee in the center, Russell Brines on the left, and Dean Schedler on the right. Credit: ©AP/Shutterstock
Steve Casey (Email) - The AP broke the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor shortly after lunch on Sunday, December 7, 1941. For more than a year after, much of the fighting in the Pacific remained shrouded from the American home front, partly because military censorship was so strict at a time of defeat and partly due to the difficulty of getting to distant battlefields, as well as the heat, insects, and disease that awaited at the front. AP war correspondents suffered along with everyone else. Communications were so poor on Bataan that Clark Lee was only able to file 500 words a day before his daring evacuation in February 1942. The planes flying men to New Guinea were so “badly worn” that some never made it, including the one ferrying Vern Haugland in August, forcing him to trek for 43 days through the jungle before he was rescued.
General Douglas MacArthur, keen to generate domestic support for more resources, forged a closer relationship with the media during his New Guinea fightback in 1943 and 1944. The culmination came during the complex campaign to recapture Hollandia, which the AP covered with 10 correspondents at the three invasion sites, including Bob Eunson whose job was to travel between them, collecting eyewitness accounts that he shepherded back to MacArthur’s headquarters 72 hours before any other reporter.
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Joe Rosenthal’s photograph of the Iwo Jima flag raising. Credit: National Archives 80G 413988 |
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MacArthur leans sympathetically over the hospital bed of Vern Haugland, who had just spent 43 days in the New Guinea jungle. The general would award the reporter with the Silver Star as a symbol of his “devotion and fortitude.” Credit: ©AP/Shutterstock |
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The Navy, desperate not to be overshadowed by MacArthur, revamped its own publicity operations during 1943 and 1944. One of its most important actions was to establish a film laboratory on Guam that could receive negatives shot by photographers at the battlefield for developing, censoring, and sending rapidly to America. Joe Rosenthal was the biggest beneficiary of this innovation during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Even before the home front had seen his legendary shot of the flag raising atop Mount Suribachi, Rosenthal had captured an image of Marines in combat that had been published on the day it was taken—a feat that the New York Times hailed as “among the miracles of modern transmission.”
As the war reached its murderous conclusion, not every story was reported in such graphic detail. Until May 1945, most newspaper editors continued to devote more attention to the European fighting—a subject covered in my book, The War Beat, Europe: The American Media at War against Nazi Germany—leaving reporters covering bloody battles like Saipan and Okinawa to complain that their stories were being given the “brush off.” When the Japanese decided to contest every street in Manila, resulting in the death of more than 100,000 civilians, MacArthur had little desire to draw attention to this aspect of his return to the Philippines. The Navy, meanwhile, remained leery of releasing news on the kamikaze attacks, not wanting the Japanese to know how much damage their suicide pilots were inflicting. Navy censors even blocked the release of one major story on the kamikazes until Sept. 2, 1945, when, as the correspondent who had written it remarked, “it couldn’t hope to compete with the signing of the surrender aboard the [USS] Missouri.”
More than 300 correspondents, broadcasters, and photographers assembled to record this surrender ceremony, making it, as one AP reporter noted, “the most thoroughly covered [story] of the war in all theaters.” Japan’s surrender in September 1945 was certainly reported in a smoother, more collaborative fashion than the German capitulation had been in May, when the AP’s Ed Kennedy was expelled for breaking a news embargo, sparking a controversy that persists to this day. This is an episode covered in detail in the companion volume, The War Beat, Europe, which won the American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year Award in 2018.
The book can be bought here.
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Steven Casey is Professor in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His books include Cautious Crusade (OUP, 2001) Selling the Korean War (OUP, 2008), which won the Harry S. Truman Book Award, When Soldiers Fall (OUP, 2014), which won the Neustadt Prize, and The War Beat Europe (OUP, 2017) which won the American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year Award. The War Beat, Pacific is published by OUP in May 2021.
It all started with NPR 50 years ago
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Jamie Friar in the AP Radio studio, in December 2016, and with his grandson Beau.
Jamie Friar (Email) - Fifty years ago, NPR launched and so did my career as a broadcast journalist. I was the first reporter heard on the very first All Things Considered. It was also my first paid assignment — the princely sum of $25 a day.
My friend and mentor Jeff Kamen was one of the inaugural NPR staffers. I was working at my college radio station at City College (WCCR) and ran into Jeff covering a protest at nearby Columbia. He was at WNEW at the time. Jeff would go on to to have more great jobs than anyone I’ve ever known in the business. NPR, ABC and NBC are just a few.
Jeff had been a reporter at WCFL in Chicago but was run out of town (no kidding) by Mayor Daley after his coverage of the 1968 Democratic Convention and the police murder of Fred Hampton. Jeff ended up in New York at WNEW and he allowed me to hang out with him. His former WCFL news director John Webster was also in New York at the time, working at WPIX-FM. I would do odd newsroom jobs, like writing the traffic reports for the jocks, but was never on-air.
In the spring of 1971, Jeff moved to Washington to help launch NPR. He called me to ask if I was interested in coming to DC to help with the May Day anti-war demonstration coverage. Hell yes! Jeff also put me up in his Northern Virginia home.
I actually received two days’ pay. There was a run-through show the day before the debut broadcast. On the day of the premiere, I was near American University gathering tape and was slugged by a hard-hat counter demonstrator. Later that day I wrote and voiced the intro to the day’s coverage.
You can hear me but my name is never mentioned. The anchor did not identify me and no one told me to do a lock-out. But I did get my 50 bucks!
I would spend the next couple of years stringing for NPR, CBC, UPI Audio and AP Radio. About two years later WFAA in Dallas would hire me — my first full-time radio job and in a Top-10 market. Then it was on to other jobs, including KMEL in San Francisco, where I would meet AP Broadcast Executive Jim Hood. Jim eventually hired me at AP Radio in the fall of 1984, where I remained for more than 33 years.
But it all started with NPR 50 years ago.
Jon Wolman's legacy continues
@ChadLivengood Tweet:
Thanks to The @DetroitNews, editor & publisher @GaryMiles_DN, the late Jon Wolman and the legal team at @HonigmanLaw for fighting this battle on my behalf, long after I left The News. I stand by my reporting.
Detroit News receives $20,000 in settlement with ex-Rep. Courser, lawyer
Beth LeBlanc
The Detroit News
Former Republican Lapeer area state Rep. Todd Courser and his lawyer agreed on Monday to pay The Detroit News $20,000 in a settlement agreement that concludes a nearly three-year defamation lawsuit.
Under the agreement, the DePerno Law Office, which represented Courser, agreed to pay $20,000 via a wire transfer to The News by 5 p.m. Monday.
The agreement came about two years after Washtenaw County Circuit Judge Timothy Connors dismissed the defamation lawsuit against The News and ordered Courser and DePerno to pay $79,701.63 in sanctions related to the suit. Courser and Matthew DePerno had appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals, where arguments were set to take place Tuesday.
Read more here. Shared by Ron Fournier.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Jon Wolman, who over more than 45 years in journalism served as editor and publisher of The Detroit News and previously worked as a reporter, Washington bureau chief and executive editor at the Associated Press, died in 2019. He was 68. He had been editor and publisher of the News since 2007.)
Ratted out? How about ‘turned in’ instead?
Kevin Noblet (Email) - An AP story about a possibly errant raid on January 6 insurrectionists, by Mark Thiessen and Michael Balsamo, got my goat by including this line:
"Many of the rioters have been ratted out by their friends and family members."
I'm all for the colloquial but... "ratted out?" Doesn't that suggest the AP embraces the view, shared by mobsters and political extremists of both sides, that people who call law enforcement with tips on possible crimes and criminals are rats?
Why not the more neutral "turned in?"
Here is the offending (to me) story:
On email addresses
Robert Meyers (Email) - [email protected] was my first email address. Before [email protected] I signed up and paid monthly for CompuServe from home in Forest Gate, London, E7 OLF. Horst Faas was also a CompuServe member but I can't remember his number. They were just about to allow names to take the place of numbers before I moved on, no longer wanting to pay monthly for the service. When I moved from London to Washington, D.C., the techs said my AP account would be moved to the domestic service. I had a lot of emails I wanted to save for some reason so they gave me a few days to print out the ones I wanted to keep. When the State Photo Center was closing, I tried to save some of my AP emails by forwarding them to a Gmail address. Unfortunately, the backup address was ap.org and when I forgot the password I could not recover it.
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Connecting wishes Happy Birthday |
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Stories of interest
Amid US pullout, Taliban issue threat to Afghan journalists (AP)
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A U.S. flag is lowered as American and Afghan soldiers attend a handover ceremony from the U.S. Army to the Afghan National Army, at Camp Anthonic, in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Sunday, May 2, 2021. (Afghan Ministry of Defense Press Office via AP)
By KATHY GANNON and TAMEEM AKHGAR
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban on Wednesday issued a threat to Afghan journalists they accuse of siding with Afghanistan’s intelligence agency in Kabul, a warning that came amid a U.S. troop pullout and rising fears of more violence in the war-wrecked country.
In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid warned those Afghan journalists who give “one-sided news in support of Afghanistan’s intelligence” service to stop or “face the consequences.”
The U.S. and Britain responded, with their embassies in Kabul quickly condemning the Taliban threat just two days after World Press Freedom Day.
“We strongly support Afghanistan’s independent media,” tweeted Ross Wilson, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Kabul. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the on-going violence and threats against the media, and the Taliban’s attempts to silence journalists.”
Afghanistan is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist. Since 2006, as many as 76 journalists have been killed in Afghanistan, according to UNESCO.
Read more here. Shared by Adolphe Bernotas.
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Column: Dear rich person: Please save the Chicago Tribune. You will be a hero. And I will mow your lawn. (Chicago Tribune)
By REX HUPPKE
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Dear anyone rich enough to buy my newspaper:
Hi there! I’m sure you’re busy, and I don’t mean to be a bother, but I was wondering if you might consider purchasing the Chicago Tribune and rescuing this civic institution from the clutches of a hedge fund that has done to newspapers what lawn mowers do to azaleas.
If you’re unfamiliar with the perilous situation my colleagues and I find ourselves in, I’ll explain:
The Chicago Tribune is part of Tribune Publishing, which owns a number of other daily newspapers such as the Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel and New York Daily News. The largest shareholder of Tribune Publishing is Alden Global Capital, the aforementioned lawn mower.
Alden is trying to take full ownership of Tribune Publishing, putting up $633 million. There’s a May 21 vote on that offer, and if shareholders accept the hedge fund’s money, the azaleas who make the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers tick might be in for a reckless pruning.
Read more here. Shared by Linda Deutsch.
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Facebook board upholds Trump ban, just not indefinitely (AP)
By MATT O'BRIEN and BARBARA ORTUTAY
Former President Donald Trump won’t return to Facebook — at least not yet.
Four months after Facebook suspended Trump’s accounts, having concluded that he incited violence leading to the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the company’s quasi-independent oversight board upheld the bans. But it told Facebook to specify how long they would last, saying that its “indefinite” ban on the former president was unreasonable. The ruling, which gives Facebook six months to comply, effectively postpones any possible Trump reinstatement and puts the onus for that decision squarely back on the company.
That could leave Facebook in the worst of all possible worlds — one in which Trump’s supporters remain enraged over the bans, his critics pushing for broader social-media regulation and the company stuck with a momentous issue it clearly hoped the oversight board would resolve.
The decision only “kicks the can down the road,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, who said it highlighted the need for greater government oversight of social platforms.
The board ruled that Facebook was correct to suspend Trump’s account four months ago. But it said the company erred by applying a vague penalty and then passing the question of whether to ban Trump permanently to the board.
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French reporter kidnapped by jihadi rebels in northern Mali (AP)
By BABA AHMED
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Jihadi rebels kidnapped French journalist Olivier Dubois on April 8 while he was working in Mali’s northern city of Gao, the chief of Reporters Without Borders has announced.
A video released Wednesday shows Dubois saying he was kidnapped by the al-Qaida-linked group JNIM. In the video he calls on his family, friends and authorities to work for his release. The video could not be independently verified.
Reporters Without Borders chief Christophe Deloire confirmed the kidnapping to The Associated Press, and called for the reporter’s release.
“We ask the Malian and French authorities to do everything possible to obtain his release and send all our support to his family and loved ones,” he posted on Twitter.
Dubois was reporting in Gao in northern Mali and did not return to his hotel after lunch on April 8, Deloire said. Dubois usually works for LePoint Afrique.
Read more here. Shared by Adolphe Bernotas.
The Final Word
Industry Problem Explained
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Shared by Larry Blasko, Paul Albright. |
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Today in History - May 6, 2021 |
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Today is Thursday, May 6, the 126th day of 2021. There are 239 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 6, 1954, medical student Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, in 3:59.4.
On this date:
In 1527, unpaid troops loyal to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V attacked Rome, forcing Pope Clement VII to flee to safety; some scholars mark the ensuing sack of the city as the end of the Renaissance in Italy.
In 1882, President Chester Alan Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from the U.S. for 10 years (Arthur had opposed an earlier version with a 20-year ban).
In 1910, Britain’s Edwardian era ended with the death of King Edward VII; he was succeeded by George V.
In 1915, Babe Ruth hit his first major-league home run as a player for the Boston Red Sox.
In 1937, the hydrogen-filled German airship Hindenburg caught fire and crashed while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey; 35 of the 97 people on board were killed along with a crewman on the ground.
In 1941, Josef Stalin assumed the Soviet premiership, replacing Vyacheslav (VEE’-cheh-slav) M. Molotov. Comedian Bob Hope did his first USO show before an audience of servicemen as he broadcast his radio program from March Field in Riverside, California.
In 1942, during World War II, some 15,000 American and Filipino troops on Corregidor island surrendered to Japanese forces.
In 1957, Eugene O’Neill’s play “Long Day’s Journey into Night” won the Pulitzer Prize for drama; John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” won the Pulitzer for biography or autobiography.
In 2004, President George W. Bush apologized for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, calling it “a stain on our country’s honor”; he rejected calls for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation.
In 2010, a computerized sell order triggered a “flash crash” on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrials to a loss of nearly 1,000 points in less than half an hour.
In 2013, kidnap-rape victims Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who went missing separately about a decade earlier while in their teens or early 20s, were rescued from a house just south of downtown Cleveland. (Their captor, Ariel Castro, hanged himself in prison in September 2013 at the beginning of a life sentence plus 1,000 years.)
In 2015, the NFL released a 243-report on “Deflategate” that stopped short of calling Patriots quarterback Tom Brady a cheater, but did call some of his claims “implausible” and left little doubt that he’d had a role in having footballs deflated before New England’s AFC title game against Indianapolis and probably in previous games.
Ten years ago: Brimming with pride, President Barack Obama met with the U.S. commandos he’d sent after terror mastermind Osama bin Laden during a visit to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Al-Qaida vowed to keep fighting the United States and avenge the death of bin Laden, which it acknowledged for the first time in an internet statement.
Five years ago: In his first remarks about Donald Trump’s status as the GOP’s presumptive nominee, President Barack Obama urged the media to undertake tougher scrutiny of presidential candidates, saying from the White House, “This is not entertainment; this is not a reality show.” For the second month in a row, the aerospace upstart SpaceX landed a rocket on an ocean platform just off the Florida coast, this time following the successful launch of a Japanese communications satellite.
One year ago: New York City began shutting down its subway system overnight to allow for additional cleaning and disinfecting of cars and stations. President Donald Trump reversed course on plans to wind down his COVID-19 task force; he said the force would shift its focus toward rebooting the economy and developing a vaccine. Three teenage McDonald’s employees in Oklahoma suffered gunshot wounds after a customer opened fire; police said the woman was angry that the restaurant’s dining area was closed because of the pandemic. Frontier Airlines said it was dropping plans to charge an extra fee for passengers to lock in an empty middle seat next to them. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued a new policy reshaping the way schools and universities dealt with complaints of sexual misconduct; the policy bolstered the rights of the accused.
Today’s Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays is 90. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., is 87. Rock singer Bob Seger is 76. Singer Jimmie Dale Gilmore is 76. Gospel singer-comedian Lulu Roman is 75. Actor Alan Dale is 74. Actor Ben Masters is 74. Actor Richard Cox is 73. Actor Gregg Henry is 69. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is 68. TV personality Tom Bergeron is 66. Actor Roma Downey is 61. Rock singer John Flansburgh (They Might Be Giants) is 61. Actor Julianne Phillips is 61. Actor-director George Clooney is 60. Actor Clay O’Brien is 60. Rock singer-musician Tony Scalzo (Fastball) is 57. Actor Leslie Hope is 56. Actor Geneva Carr (TV: “Bull”) is 55. Rock musician Mark Bryan (Hootie and the Blowfish) is 54. Rock musician Chris Shiflett (Foo Fighters) is 50. Actor Stacey Oristano is 42. Model/TV personality Tiffany Coyne is 39. Actor Adrianne Palicki is 38. Actor Gabourey Sidibe (GA’-bah-ray SIH’-duh-bay) is 38. Actor-comedian Sasheer Zamata is 35. Rapper Meek Mill is 34. Houston Astros infielder Jose Altuve is 31. Actor-singer Naomi Scott is 28. Actor Noah Galvin is 27.
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Got a story or photos to share? |
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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
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