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Connecting
May 8, 2023
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Retired AP photographers Peter Leabo (left) and Orlin Wagner study cameras brought to an AP Kansas City retiree luncheon by Shirley Christian.
Colleagues,
Good Monday morning on this May 8, 2023,
Guess what Shirley Christian brought to a recent AP retirees lunch in Kansas City? Besides a bag of her famous truffles for each attendee, of course.
A camera bag containing a Pentax ME super, with a 50mm Ricoh Rikenon lens. And a Ricoh with an SMC Pentax fish-eye 17 mm lens, which says Asahi Optical Co., Japan on it. The film holder says Multi-Program X-R-P on it. The bag also contains a lens called Macro Tefnon zoom 1:2.5-3.5 f=35-70 mm.
Shirley relates:
The way it all came to me is that my brother, Bill Christian, used to run a business in downtown Omaha, and one day, probably early ‘80s, a young Japanese couple came in and said they were trying to find a pawn shop in the neighborhood. My brother couldn't help with that, but they had run out of money, were waiting for some from home, and wanted to pawn their cameras for $100 until the money arrived. He told them he would pay them the $100, and they could come back when the money arrived.
They never came back. He thought they were very nice people and after a few days became concerned that something may have happened to them in the wilds of Nebraska, so he contacted the police, who said they had no way to investigate and no one had reported the couple missing.
So Bill took the bag home and stashed it with the gobs of other stuff he tends to accumulate. Two years ago, he brought it to me and asked if I knew how to list it for sale somewhere, or to find out what it was worth.
It occurred to me recently that AP photographers, employed or retired, would be the people to answer that question. And that’s just what I did.
The advice from retired AP photographers Peter Leabo and Orlin Wagner: put them on eBay and see what happens.
If you have your own advice for Shirley, please share.
Today, the 2023 Pulitzer Prizes – recognizing the very best in journalism - will be announced by Administrator Marjorie Miller via livestream at 3 p.m. Eastern. It also will have awards for Books, Drama and Music. (Marjorie, a former AP journalist, is a Connecting colleague.)
Here’s to a great week ahead – be safe, stay healthy, live your life to the fullest!
Paul
The Edmund Fitzgerald/AP mystery continues - with new twist?
In Friday’s Connecting, we included the following from the New York Times obituary for singer Gordon Lightfoot, who died last Monday at age 84:
The morning after the Fitzgerald went down, the rector of Mariners’ Church of Detroit tolled its bell 29 times, once for each man lost. An Associated Press reporter knocked on the church’s door, interviewed the rector and filed an account that was published in newspapers.
Mr. Lightfoot read the article. Soon afterward, he started singing a song about the wreck during a previously scheduled recording session. His band joined in, and the first version of the song that they recorded was later released, according to “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind,” a 2020 documentary.
Some who worked in the Detroit bureau at the time and covered the wreck had no idea about the mention of the AP reporter. Some followup over the weekend from:
Francesca Pitaro, archivist – Valerie (Komor, director of AP Corporate Archives) and I did a little sleuthing, trying to find out which AP reporter had spoken to the Reverend Ingalls, but we came up blank. We didn’t find a story in the newspaper archives, any mention of it in AP World or the Log, or on the story index cards that were kept by the news library. We found an article in the Detroit Free Press that mentions Ingalls and the bells in the last paragraphs. It was not an AP story. We also found a 2006 article in the NY Times. Ingalls had died by then, but his son tells his father’s story of an AP reporter coming to the house. This is probably where the Times got it from, its own story from 2006.
It reads:
An Associated Press reporter who had flown into Detroit to help cover the story of the wreck happened to hear the tolling of the bells that morning, Mr. Ingalls said. The reporter knocked on the door of the church, interviewed the rector and filed an account that was published in newspapers all over the country and read by the Canadian singer and songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.
So a new clue? The AP reporter had flown in to Detroit for the story. Anyone?
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Larry Paladino - I also was at the AP in Detroit when the Fitzgerald went down. I was in Lansing for the Michigan AP All-State High School Football meeting with sports editors and the news came over the paper's teletypes. I might be able to dig up an old staff list but offhand I'd say our other photographer who might have knocked on the church door was Rich Sheinwald. Reporter Pete Yost might have been there, too, or Charley Cain.
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Andrew Selsky - Re the bell tolling getting into the AP copy, it could have been a separate uppick from a member, or an AP editor saw it in member copy and included a few lines in our story, couldn’t it?
Connecting series: Requiem for the Newsroom
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Robert Burdick - Here’s a different angle on the culture of newsrooms. The Jan. 17, 1994, Northridge Earthquake devastated our offices at the LA Daily News. City Inspectors red-tagged us, prohibiting us from using the building. (The destruction wouldn’t have allowed us to, anyway.)
But thanks to the top-notch dedication of our staff (many of whom suffered serious damage to their homes) and stunning compassion of our journalism colleagues at Copley Los Angeles Newspapers, we never missed a day of publication.
Staff members just started showing up. (Few could be called; many phone lines were out and universal cell phones still were in the future.) “My house was ruined,” one staffer told me. “Where else was I going to go?”
The newsroom culture, bred by the tumultuous daily adventures of close newsroom contact (no work-from-home deals in 1994), had many of us on the job, working to produce the next day’s paper — and, later, to start cleaning up our newsroom.
And the life-savers at Copley LA? Led by publisher Tom Wafer, they welcomed us to their offices at the Santa Monica Outlook, where we produced the paper depicted here — and they rolled it off their presses (ours were disabled).
Newsrooms were interesting animals in those days — more than a quarter of a century ago. In an emergency, staffers reacted as newspeople were known to react. And competing newspapers cooperated.
It was because of the newsroom culture, and newspaper culture in general. I believed it then, and I believe it now.
Could we have pulled this off without the close-knit newsroom camaraderie, and the help of competitors? Who can say for sure? But I seriously doubt it.
I still say thank you to all involved. It was a good time to be a journalist.
About the photos above: Our front page the day after the quake. The head fonts were different, but the paper was ours. The second shot shows the devastation in our newsroom, as well as a much younger, much skinnier and much grimmer me, the Editor. As best I recall, I was reporting in to our owner, the late Jack Kent Cooke, via one of the few working phone lines. Note: I apologize for the reflections on the photos; they are behind glass.
Maye-E Wong joins Reuters as Senior Editor, Wider Image and Special Projects
By Reuters Communications
Reuters Pictures Global Editor Rickey Rogers shared the following message with Reuters colleagues about Maye-E Wong’s appointment as Senior Editor of Wider Image and Special Projects.
I am delighted to announce that award-winning photojournalist Maye-E Wong is coming to Reuters to take on the role of Senior Editor, Wider Image and Special Projects.
In her past two decades at the Associated Press (AP), Maye-E was one of the agency’s go-to photographers for a remarkable range of assignments across the world, including more than 35 trips to North Korea. Her career highlights include stories such as Rohingya women fleeing Myanmar, political unrest in Thailand and Hong Kong, the devastation of typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Bangladesh’s garment factory collapse, and Black Lives Matter protests on the streets of New York.
Her own work has won an Overseas Press Club Hal Boyle Award and the 2018 Ancil Payne Ethics in Journalism Award, as well as a Picture of the Year award from the Reynolds Journalism Institute for her portraits of victims of abuse by Catholic clergy.
More recently, she’s become known as a fierce advocate of visual journalism, an innovator in digital storytelling and, occasionally, an assignment photographer. Recently, she traveled across large swaths of the United States documenting life as Americans navigated the uncertainty of both COVID and politics.
Maye-E takes on the leadership of Wider Image at Reuters. Maye-E will report to me and be based in New York starting April 24.
Please join me in extending a warm welcome to Maye-E.
Click here for link to this story.
A farewell to her AP colleagues
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Maye-E Wong on her last day at the AP headquarters building, April 7. Photo by Ted Anthony.
In a Facebook post, Maye-E Wong wrote:
After 20 years I have left the Associated Press for an opportunity to grow another set of muscles because I am ready and it’s time to keep moving onwards. I’ve had a helluva career! And gave AP more than my best, pushed my own limits and in my photo space plus the newsroom across formats sometimes, and proud of it.
Words cannot express my gratitude to the people that have surrounded me with all the love and the space to grow, and support me to be a better journalist / photographer and most importantly, a kinder and more empathetic human being. AP and its people have been such a huge part of my life - and in this space I was allowed to learn, make mistakes and grow from them - my best friends, friendships that will last forever and memories that will never be replaced. I’ve had the best assignments of my life that i never dreamt I’d undertake - from covering breaking news in my own home, Asia and globally, to having the privilege of travelling back and forth into North Korea for four years. I even learned how to ski and speak North Korean there… several Olympics, the palace grin and grips and long-form story telling that have impacted people’s lives.
I couldn’t ask for more. I hope that in small ways I have left something positive behind for my friends too. I leave the company but not the people and even though I am moving over to the competition, Reuters, to lead the Wider Image and Special Projects (still based in NYC), I believe that we can still support each other no matter which side of the fence we sit on and collectively, we can elevate the industry to higher standards!
Corky Lee
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Cliff Schiappa - Today's Google Doodle (Friday, May 5) Screen Shot drew my attention because it featured a person holding a camera in such a way that he looked like a photojournalist. For those who are not aware of the Doodle (I didn't know it was called that until now), it's the piece of artwork appearing on the Google Chrome home page that includes the word Google somehow incorporated into the artwork. When I clicked on the link at the lower right corner of the Doodle, a box popped up that said "Celebrating Corky Lee". I had no idea who Corky Lee was, so I Googled him and found this link to an NBC report following his death in 2021: Not only did I learn about a photojournalist passionate about social justice, I also learned there is a story behind every Google Doodle.
Scene from the US-Mexico border
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Nick Ut - I am here at U.S and Mexico Borders this weekend – about 2,000 immigrants crossing into United States from many countries: Russia, Georgia, Jordan, Pakistan, Africa. Many from Central America and China. At San Luis Arizona, Sunday.
A Sunday birthday guy
| Mike Feinsilber - I don’t know why I look so somber. Maybe I was contemplating 90, which is coming right up? 88 was such a nice round number, divisible by 2, 4, 8, 11, 22. 44, etc. Only the other hand, 89 is prime… | Connecting wishes Happy Birthday | |
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Stories of interest
Newton Minow, ex-FCC chief who dubbed TV ‘wasteland,’ dies (AP)
By TAMMY WEBBER
CHICAGO (AP) — Newton N. Minow, who as Federal Communications Commission chief in the early 1960s famously proclaimed that network television was a “vast wasteland,” died Saturday. He was 97.
Minow, who received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, died Saturday at home, surrounded by loved ones, said his daughter, Nell Minow.
“He wanted to be at home,” she told The Associated Press. “He had a good life.”
Though Minow remained in the FCC post just two years, he left a permanent stamp on the broadcasting industry through government steps to foster satellite communications, the passage of a law mandating UHF reception on TV sets and his outspoken advocacy for quality in television.
“My faith is in the belief that this country needs and can support many voices of television — and that the more voices we hear, the better, the richer, the freer we shall be,” Minow once said. “After all, the airways belong to the people.”
Read more here.
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New Twitter rules expose election offices to spoof accounts (AP)
By ALI SWENSON
NEW YORK (AP) — Tracking down accurate information about Philadelphia’s elections on Twitter used to be easy. The account for the city commissioners who run elections, @phillyvotes, was the only one carrying a blue check mark, a sign of authenticity.
But ever since the social media platform overhauled its verification service last month, the check mark has disappeared. That’s made it harder to distinguish @phillyvotes from a list of random accounts not run by the elections office but with very similar names.
The election commission applied weeks ago for a gray check mark — Twitter’s new symbol to help users identify official government accounts – but has yet to hear back from the Twitter, commission spokesman Nick Custodio said. It’s unclear whether @phillyvotes is an eligible government account under Twitter’s new rules.
That’s troubling, Custodio said, because Pennsylvania has a primary election May 16 and the commission uses its account to share important information with voters in real time. If the account remains unverified, it will be easier to impersonate – and harder for voters to trust – heading into Election Day.
Read more here.
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The Somers Record finds a kidney donor and saves a life (Editor and Publisher)
Bob Sillick | for Editor & Publisher
Newspapers save lives. Many newspapers are recognized as vital local institutions in their communities, but how many can literally say they have saved a life? The Somers Record is one of six local newspapers owned by Halston Media, serving communities in Westchester and surrounding counties east of the Hudson River.
Corinne Stanton, an advertising account executive for Halston Media, is one of those people who seemingly knows everyone in Somers.
“I hired Corinne several years ago because she knows everyone in the community, and everyone likes her. She cares about her clients and the community, and although her job is ad sales, she also cares about the content of our newspapers,” Brett Freeman, CEO and publisher of Halston Media, said.
Being so well known resulted in Stanton receiving a forwarded email in March 2023 from Rose Fiscella, a friend of Stanton's mother. The email was from Heide Fiscella, wife of John Fiscella, Rose’s son and a popular guitar teacher. It was a plea from Heide to find her husband a kidney donor. John was a diabetic with end-stage renal failure — and desperately needed a new kidney.
Read more here.
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White House Unveils Rules Targeting Journalists Who Refuse To Be ‘Professional’ (Daily Caller)
DIANA GLEBOVA
WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT
The White House released new requirements Friday outlining which journalists are allowed in the briefing room and presidential events, and warning about unprofessional behavior.
The new rules require journalists to submit a letter to gain access to the White House grounds with information about their employment, mandating that reporters work for “an organization whose principal business is news dissemination.”
The rule change comes as the administration has been facing repeated outbursts in the briefing room from reporters like Simon Ateba, and comes days after World Press Freedom Day. Journalists have called out White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for not giving fair representation in the briefing room and the Biden administration has faced criticism from the press corps over unfair access to White House events.
Read more here. Shared by Doug Pizac, Paul Albright.
The Final Word(s)
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Shared by Adolphe Bernotas | |
Today in History - May 8, 2023 | |
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Today is Monday, May 8, the 128th day of 2023. There are 237 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 8, 1996, South Africa took another step from apartheid to democracy by adopting a constitution that guaranteed equal rights for Blacks and whites.
On this date:
In 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River.
In 1846, the first major battle of the Mexican-American War was fought at Palo Alto, Texas; U.S. forces led by Gen. Zachary Taylor were able to beat back Mexican forces.
In 1915, Regret became the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby.
In 1945, President Harry S. Truman announced on radio that Nazi Germany’s forces had surrendered, and that “the flags of freedom fly all over Europe.”
In 1972, President Richard Nixon announced that he had ordered the mining of Haiphong Harbor during the Vietnam War.
In 1973, militant American Indians who had held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrendered.
In 1978, David R. Berkowitz pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn courtroom to murder, attempted murder and assault in connection with the “Son of Sam” shootings that claimed six lives and terrified New Yorkers. (Berkowitz was sentenced to six consecutive life prison terms.)
In 1984, the Soviet Union announced it would boycott the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
In 1993, the Muslim-led government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and rebel Bosnian Serbs signed an agreement for a nationwide cease-fire.
In 2003, the Senate unanimously endorsed adding to NATO seven former communist nations: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
In 2020, the unemployment level surged to 14.7%, a level last seen when the country was in the throes of the Great Depression; the government reported that 20 million Americans had lost their jobs in April amid the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Ten years ago: A jury in Phoenix convicted Jodi Arias of first-degree murder in the 2008 death of her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander (Arias was later sentenced to life in prison). George Karl was named the NBA’s Coach of the Year for leading the Denver Nuggets to a team-record 57-win regular season. An apparent game-tying homer by Oakland’s Adam Rosales was ruled a double by umpires in the ninth inning, and the Cleveland Indians held on to beat the Athletics 4-3. Jeanne Cooper, the enduring soap opera star who had played grande dame Katherine Chancellor for nearly four decades on “The Young and the Restless,” and the mother of actor Corbin Bernsen, died in Los Angeles at age 84.
Five years ago: President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear accord with Iran and restored harsh sanctions; Trump had been a severe critic of the deal negotiated by the Obama administration in which Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program. Gina Haspel, nominated to be CIA director, said that if confirmed, she would not undertake a detention and harsh interrogation program like the controversial one used after 9/11. (Haspel would be confirmed by a Senate vote of 54-45.) James Paxton of the Seattle Mariners pitched a no-hitter against the Blue Jays in Toronto, becoming the first Canadian to achieve that feat in his home country.
One year ago: A Russian bomb destroyed a school sheltering about 90 people in eastern Ukraine, killing as many as 60 people. The governor of Luhansk province said 30 people were rescued from the rubble of the school in the village of Bilohorivka. Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine, holding a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with first lady Olena Zelenska to show U.S. support for the embattled nation. The summer movie season got off to a blockbuster start thanks to “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.” The superhero extravaganza grossed an estimated $185 million in ticket sales in its first weekend in U.S. and Canadian theaters.
Today’s Birthdays: Naturalist Sir David Attenborough is 97. Singer Toni Tennille is 83. Actor James Mitchum is 82. Country singer Jack Blanchard is 81. Jazz musician Keith Jarrett is 78. Actor Mark Blankfield is 75. Singer Philip Bailey (Earth, Wind and Fire) is 72. Rock musician Chris Frantz (Talking Heads) is 72. Rockabilly singer Billy Burnette is 70. Rock musician Alex Van Halen is 70. Actor David Keith is 69. Actor Raoul Max Trujillo is 68. Sports commentator/former NFL coach Bill Cowher is 66. Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is 62. Actor Melissa Gilbert is 59. Rock musician Dave Rowntree (Blur) is 59. Rock singer Darren Hayes is 51. Singer Enrique Iglesias is 48. Blues singer-musician Joe Bonamassa is 46. Actor Matt Davis is 45. Actor Elyes Gabel is 40. Actor Domhnall Gleeson is 40. Actor Julia Whelan (WAY’-lan) is 39. Actor Nora Anezeder is 34.
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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 Midwest 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
[email protected]
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