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Nov. 15, 2024

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Colleagues,

Good Friday morning on this Nov. 15, 2024,

Connecting brought you earlier in the week the news of the death of Ulich Renz, former head of the AP's German-language service. The AP published an obituary on the wires Thursday and we bring you the story.

Tribute to Ben – One of the most touching videos you’ll see is a tribute by Kirk Herbstreit, a member of ESPN’s College Game Day crew, to his beloved dog Ben, a golden retriever who traveled with Kirk from campus to campus and died recently. Click here to view. 

Have a great weekend – be safe, stay healthy, live each day to your fullest.

Paul

Former AP German-language service head Ulrich Renz, who covered Nazi trials, dies at 90

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER

BERLIN (AP) — Ulrich Renz, a former head of The Associated Press German-language service who also covered the trials of leaders of the Auschwitz death camp in World War II, has died at the age of 90. 

Renz died Monday, according to Peter Gehrig, a close friend for 50 years and a former AP colleague who lived in the same senior citizen residence in Frankfurt. No cause of death was given.

Widely known as “Uli,” Renz began working for the AP in Germany in 1971, after a stint at United Press International. At AP, he first worked on the foreign desk and eventually headed the German-language service at its Frankfurt headquarters from 1986-92.

The German-language news service was begun after World War II to help establish a free press and support democracy in postwar West Germany. It was sold to the German news agency DDP in 2009.

Renz was born in Stuttgart in 1934 and grew up in the village of Giengen an der Brenz in southwestern Germany. After graduating from high school, he worked as a reporter for the Heidenheimer Zeitung newspaper, where he stayed until moving to UPI in 1959.

During his decades as a journalist in Germany, he focused on reporting about the country’s highest court, the Federal Constitutional Court, and wrote extensively about the trials of many former Nazis, including the Auschwitz trials.

The 1963-65 trial in Frankfurt of 22 men who helped run the Auschwitz death camp in Germany-occupied Poland was one of the biggest following the Allies’ Nuremberg war crimes trials immediately after World War II. It confronted people in then-West Germany with the Nazi past and is credited as a turning point in German efforts to address the crimes of that period.

After retiring in 1992, Renz devoted his time to researching the life of Georg Elser, a carpenter who tried to kill Hitler in Munich but was thwarted because the Nazi leader unexpectedly left the room minutes before a bomb exploded. Renz published several books on Elser‘s life and the failed attempt, gaining recognition from scholars and political leaders. He was honored with the German Cross of Honor for his work.

“Renz’s passion for researching the Third Reich sprang at least partly from his father’s refusal to talk about his own role in it as a civilian administrator in Nazi-occupied Poland,” Gehrig said. “Across vanquished Germany, there wasn’t much interest into digging into the dark past. Uli was among the young Germans who thought otherwise.”

Former AP Bonn correspondent Terrence Petty said that “as a journalist and digger into uncomfortable truths, Uli was an inspiration to those who knew him and worked with him, myself included.”

Renz enjoyed biking, visiting coffee shops in Frankfurt and reading, although recently his sight had diminished, Gehrig said.

Renz is survived by his son, daughter-in-law and a granddaughter.

Click here for link to this story.

Remembering Larry Hobbs

Edward L. Birk - I echo all of the comments by Dan Sewell and others about Larry’s exemplary leadership. His job description—day filer—didn’t begin to capture all of his skills and knowledge and kindness. He had the heart of a teacher, which benefitted countless young staffers who flowed through the Miami bureau. Offered many lessons. One that comes to mind is never include a phone number in a news story without first calling the number to confirm it to be correct. A lesson that was no doubt learned the hard way.

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Charles Bruce - I was saddened to learn of the passing of our colleague Larry Hobbs of the Miami AP bureau. Larry was a quiet and amiable fellow who tutored many newcomers to the Florida bureau with his great ability of historical knowledge.

Larry, you were one of the good ones, RIP.

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Bill Kaczor - If Clark Kent, alias Superman, was a "mild mannered reporter," then Miami Day Supervisor Larry Hobbs must have been a "mild mannered editor." He certainly wasn't faster than a speeding bullet, but his superpower was his personality -- genial, warm, calm, cool and collected. I spoke with him every day, often several times including first thing in the morning, by telephone or message wire from faraway Tallahassee or Pensacola. However, we probably met face-to-face no more than a half-dozen times during the quarter century we worked together in Florida.

Thanks to Larry, those were all very pleasant years. The bonus was that Larry, as others have noted, had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Sunshine State, which was especially appreciated in the days before the all-knowing internet. I'd ask Larry first and on those rare occasions when he didn't have an answer, I was off to the library or morgue at the newspaper where I occupied a tiny office. Larry had few AP bylines, so his vital desk work did not get the notice that it deserved. For those of us who worked with him, though, his contributions will not be forgotten.

Meetup at the Pentagon

Former AP photographer Laura Rauch and Bob Reid, longtime foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Asia and Europe get together Wednesday at the Pentagon where Laura works for the Air Force. Reid is currently Editor-in-Chief of Stars and Stripes, the storied military newspaper.

Connecting wishes Happy Birthday

Mark Crane

Bill Kole

On Saturday to…

Owen Ullmann

On Sunday to…

Robert Dobkin

Stories of interest

Fighting conspiracy theories with comedy? That’s what the Onion hopes after its purchase of Infowars (AP)

By DAVID BAUDER

Headlines from the satirical website the Onion on Thursday: “New Dating Site Suggests People You Already Know But Thought You Were Too Good For.” “Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Gets to Run Foreign Policy Meetings.” “Here’s Why I Decided to Buy Infowars.”

Only one has the ring of truth. Sort of.

The bylined author of the Infowars article, Bryce P. Tetraeder, doesn’t actually exist. And the Onion doesn’t plan to invest in business school scholarships for promising cult leaders.

But the Onion’s purchase of Alex Jones’ conspiracy-theory-saturated media empire at a bankruptcy auction tied to lawsuits by the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims is very real — an effort to fight falsehoods with funny and a who’d-have-thunk-it development in an already somewhat unbelievable year. An element of doubt was added late Thursday when the judge in Jones’ bankruptcy case ordered a hearing for next week on how the auction was conducted.

On Thursday, The Onion immediately shut down Infowars and said it plans to relaunch it in January as a parody of conspiracy theorists.

“Our goal in a couple of years is for people to think of Infowars as the funniest and dumbest website that exists,” said Ben Collins, the Onion’s CEO. “It was previously the dumbest website that exists.”

Read more here. Shared by Doug Pizac, Dennis Conrad.

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The election proved the media is in crisis. Here’s what it needs to do to regain its relevance (CNN)

By Brian Stelter, CNN

New York - Donald Trump’s reelection last week emboldened his allies to proclaim that he had vanquished the American news media as well as Vice President Kamala Harris.

“The media is dead,” Fox News comedian Greg Gutfeld declared. “It’s dead,” his primetime colleague Sean Hannity echoed. “You are the media now,” Elon Musk posted over and over again on X.

Dead? No. But some journalists are feeling defeated in the wake of Trump’s victory — not necessarily because they preferred Harris, but because they are acutely aware that many voters tuned out the fact-driven news coverage of Trump and Harris altogether. In the words of one radio journalist, who insisted on anonymity to speak frankly, it is “hard not to see this election as just a national repudiation of what we do.”

As audiences increasingly embrace online platforms, podcasts, YouTube videos and other digital sources of information are ascendant while traditional news outlets struggle to remain relevant. On social media, in-depth investigations are often ignored while misleading memes get shared millions of times.

Some of these trends have been evident for years, but the election results have put an exclamation point on the concerns about distrust and dissatisfaction with the media status quo. Now, a reckoning is underway. Media executives and rank-and-file reporters are wondering what needs to change. What can news outlets do to regain trust and appeal to new audiences without alienating existing readers and viewers?

Read more here.

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Who Wants to Cover the Second Coming of Trump? (Intelligencer)

By Charlotte Klein

The week after his historic win, the Donald Trump presidency began taking shape with a series of Cabinet and other high-level announcements, and the media, which has chronicled his every troll, tweet, and leak — not to mention substantive policy decisions — for a decade, looked on with trepidation. “Four years ago, everyone was saying, ‘I’m never going to do this again,’” says one veteran political reporter. “Everyone got fat and wrinkles and gray hair and no one saw their kids. Everyone was like, never again, particularly after January 6.”

Yesterday morning, Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett posted what looked like an official announcement from the Trump-Vance transition team announcing Tucker Carlson as White House press secretary. She promptly deleted it; turns out it was fake news. But it wasn’t so hard to believe. Trump a day earlier had picked Pete Hegseth, the square-jawed Fox News host and self-certified anti-woke crusader, to run the Pentagon.

In fact, Trump has yet to name a press secretary, the most public-facing role in the shop. The press secretary typically holds a daily briefing with the White House press corps, though that practice became not so daily in Trump’s first term, when his press secretaries went weeks and then months without taking questions from reporters. (It came back on a regular basis under President Biden, even if the big guy himself was a bit averse to meeting the press.) Trump in his first administration went through four press secretaries: Sean Spicer (now a podcaster), Sarah Huckabee Sanders (now the governor of Arkansas), Stephanie Grisham (now a frequent anti-Trump voice on TV panels and beyond — she spoke at the DNC), and Kayleigh McEnany (now a Fox News co-host).

Read more here. Shared by Mark Mittelstadt.

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Viewers Flee MSNBC, and Flock to Fox News, in Wake of Election (New York Times)

By John Koblin

Rachel Maddow opened her MSNBC show on Monday night with a sobering 26-minute monologue.

Between deep sighs and the occasional shake of the head, Ms. Maddow went through the people President-elect Donald J. Trump had named to his new administration. To say the least, she was not a fan of his selections. But it was important to go through them, she said.

“It is better to be cleareyed about these things and to see them coming,” she said, “than to be in denial or to be surprised by them when they come around.”

It seems her audience does not agree, at least for the moment.

“The Rachel Maddow Show,” the liberal network’s highest-rated program, drew 1.3 million viewers on Monday, about a million shy of her October average, according to Nielsen. In a crucial ratings metric — viewers under the age of 54 — it was the least-watched edition of the show since April 2022.

That performance mirrors much of what has been happening at MSNBC in the week since Mr. Trump’s election win. MSNBC has averaged 550,000 viewers since Election Day, a 39 percent decline compared with the network’s average in October. In prime time, MSNBC’s audience has declined 53 percent, according to the Nielsen data.

Read more here.

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The Wall Street Journal’s Campaign to Free Evan Gershkovich (Columbia Journalism Review)

By Paul Beckett

Midway through dinner on March 29, 2023, at an Italian restaurant in Washington, my phone buzzed. It was Emma Tucker, the newly appointed editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal and my boss. I excused myself from the other guests, journalists, and dignitaries brought together by a tech CEO, and dashed into the small courtyard.

“Evan Gershkovich has gone missing,” Tucker said. “What can we do?”

At the time, I was the Journal’s Washington bureau chief, and so was best placed in the newsroom to engage the Biden administration as we sought to find out what happened to our colleague. Few at the Journal in the US had met Gershkovich since he had joined the paper just over a year earlier as a correspondent covering Russia.

Tucker said Gershkovich had missed two check-ins over the past several hours. What we knew from our corporate security team suggested that he might match the description, just emerging in some Russian reports, of a man hauled out of a steakhouse by government agents in Yekaterinburg, an industrial hub more than a thousand miles from Moscow where Gershkovich was reporting on the state of Russia’s wartime economy.

Read more here.

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Elon Musk’s AI turns on him, labels him ‘one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X’ (Fortune)

Story by Chris Morris

Elon Musk might be in charge of the business of Grok, but the artificial intelligence has seemingly gone into business for itself, labeling Musk as one of the worst offenders when it comes to spreading misinformation online.

User Gary Koepnick asked the AI which person spreads the most information on Twitter/X—and the service did not hesitate in pointing a finger at its creator.

“Based on various analyses, social media sentiment, and reports, Elon Musk has been identified as one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X since he acquired the platform,” it wrote, later adding “Musk has made numerous posts that have been criticized for promoting or endorsing misinformation, especially related to political events, elections, health issues like COVID-19, and conspiracy theories. His endorsements or interactions with content from controversial figures or accounts with a history of spreading misinformation have also contributed to this perception.”

The AI also pointed out that because of Musk’s large number of followers and high visibility, any misinformation he posts is immediately amplified and gains legitimacy among his followers.

Read more here. Shared by Doug Pizac.

AP classes, by the year...

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a listing of Connecting colleagues who have shared the year and the bureau where they started with the AP. If you would like to share your own information, I will include it in later postings. Current AP staffers are also welcome to share their information.)

NEWEST ADDITIONS:

Susan Ragan, New York, 1986

Michael Weissenstein, New York

1951 - Norm Abelson (Boston)

1953 – Charles Monzella (Huntington, WVa)

1955 – Henry Bradsher (Atlanta), Paul Harrington (Boston), Joe McGowan (Cheyenne)

1957 - Louis Uchitelle (Philadelphia)

1958 – Roy Bolch (Kansas City)

1959 – Charlie Bruce (Montgomery)

1960 – Claude Erbsen (New York), Carl Leubsdorf (New Orleans)

1961 – Peter Arnett (Jakarta, Indonesia), Strat Douthat (Charleston. WVa), Warren Lerude (San Diego), Ed Staats (Austin)

1962 – Paul Albright (Cheyenne), Malcolm Barr Sr. (Honolulu), Myron Belkind (New York), Dave Mazzarella (Newark), Peggy Simpson (Dallas), Kelly Smith Tunney (Miami)

1963 – Hal Bock (New York), Jeff Williams (Portland OR)

1964 – Rachel Ambrose (Indianapolis), Larry Hamlin (Oklahoma City), John Lengel (Los Angeles), Ron Mulnix (Denver), Lyle Price (San Francisco), Lew Simons (New York), Arlene Sposato (New York), Karol Stonger (Indianapolis), Hilmi Toros (New York)

1965 – Bob Dobkin (Pittsburgh), Harry Dunphy (Denver), John Gibbons (New York), Bob Greene (Kansas City), Jim Luther (Nashville), Larry Margasak (Harrisburg), Rich Oppel (Tallahassee)

1966 – Shirley Christian (Kansas City), Mike Doan (Portland, OR), Edie Lederer (New York), Nancy Shipley (Nashville), Mike Short (Los Angeles), Marty Thompson (Seattle), Nick Ut (Saigon), Kent Zimmerman (Chicago)

1967 – Dan Berger (Los Angeles), Adolphe Bernotas (Concord), Lou Boccardi (New York), Linda Deutsch (Los Angeles), Don Harrison (Los Angeles), Frank Hawkins (New York), Doug Kienitz (Cheyenne), David Liu (New York), Bruce Lowitt (Los Angeles), Chuck McFadden (Los Angeles), Martha Malan (Minneapolis), Bill Morrissey (Buffalo), Larry Paladino (Detroit), Michael Putzel (Raleigh), Bruce Richardson (Chicago), Richard Shafer (Baltimore), Victor Simpson (Newark), Michael Sniffen (Newark), Kernan Turner (Portland, Ore)

1968 – Lee Balgemann (Chicago), John Eagan (San Francisco), Joe Galu (Albany/Troy), Peter Gehrig (Frankfurt), Charles Hanley (Albany), Jerry Harkavy (Portland, Maine), Herb Hemming (New York), Brian King (Albany), Samuel Koo (New York), Karren Mills (Minneapolis), Michael Rubin (Los Angeles), Rick Spratling (Salt Lake City), Barry Sweet (Seattle)

1969 - Ann Blackman (New York), Ford Burkhart (Philadelphia), Harry Cabluck (Pittsburgh), Dick Carelli (Charleston, WVa), Dennis Coston (Richmond), Ron Frehm (New York), Mary V. Gordon (Newark), Daniel Q. Haney (Portland, Maine), Mike Harris (Chicago), Brad Martin (Kansas City), David Minthorn (Frankfurt), Cynthia Rawitch (Los Angeles), Bob Reid (Charlotte), Mike Reilly (New York), Doug Tucker (Tulsa), Bill Winter (Helena)

1970 – Richard Boudreaux (New York), David Briscoe (Manila), Sibby Christensen (New York), Richard Drew (San Francisco), Bob Egelko (Los Angeles), Steve (Indy) Herman (Indianapolis), Tim Litsch (New York), Lee Margulies (Los Angeles), Chris Pederson (Salt Lake City), Brendan Riley (San Francisco), Larry Thorson (Philadelphia)

1971 – Harry Atkins (Detroit), Jim Bagby (Kansas City), Larry Blasko (Chicago), Jim Carlson (Milwaukee), Jim Carrier (New Haven), Chris Connell (Newark), Bill Gillen (New York), Bill Hendrick (Birmingham), John Lumpkin (Dallas), Kendal Weaver (Montgomery)

1972 – Hank Ackerman (New York), Bob Fick (St. Louis), Joe Frazier (Portland, Ore.), Terry Ganey (St. Louis), Mike Graczyk (Detroit), Denis Gray (Albany), Lindel Hutson (Little Rock), Brent Kallestad (Sioux Falls), Tom Kent (Hartford), Nolan Kienitz (Dallas), Kent Kilpatrick (Detroit), Andy Lippman (Phoenix), Ellen Miller (Helena), Mike Millican (Hartford), Bruce Nathan (New York), Ginny Pitt Sherlock (Boston), Lew Wheaton (Richmond)

1973 - Jerry Cipriano (New York), Susan Clark (New York), Norm Clarke (Cincinnati), Marty Crutsinger (Miami), Steve Fox (Los Angeles), Joe Galianese (East Brunswick), Merrill Hartson (Richmond), Mike Hendricks (Albany), Tom Journey (Tucson), Steve Loeper (Los Angeles), Jesus Medina (New York), Tom Slaughter (Sioux Falls), Jim Spehar (Denver), Paul Stevens (Albany), Jeffrey Ulbrich (Cheyenne), Owen Ullmann (Detroit), Suzanne Vlamis (New York), John Willis (Omaha), Evans Witt (San Francisco)

1974 – Norman Black (Baltimore), David Espo (Cheyenne), Dan George (Topeka), Robert Glass (Philadelphia), Steve Graham (Helena), Tim Harper (Milwaukee), Elaine Hooker (Hartford), Sue Price Johnson (Charlotte), Dave Lubeski (Washington), Janet McConnaughey (Washington), Lee Mitgang (New York), Barry Shlachter (Tokyo), Bud Weydert (Toledo), Marc Wilson (Little Rock) 

1975 – Peter Eisner (Columbus), Charles Hill (Charlotte), Jim Limbach (Washington), Bill McCloskey (Washington), David Powell (New York), Eileen Alt Powell (Milwaukee)

1976 – Brad Cain (Chicago), Judith Capar (Philadelphia), Dick Chady (Albany), Steve Crowley (Washington), David Egner (Oklahoma City), Marc Humbert (Albany), Steven Hurst (Columbus), Richard Lowe (Nashville), Mike Mcphee (Boston), John Nolan (Nashville), Guy Palmiotto (New York), Charlotte Porter (Minneapolis), Chuck Wolfe (Charlotte)

1977 – Bryan Brumley (Washington), Robert Burns (Jefferson City), Charles Campbell (Nashville), Carolyn Carlson (Atlanta), Dave Carpenter (Philadelphia), Solange De Santis (New York), Jim Drinkard (Jefferson City), Ken Herman (Dallas), Mike Holmes (Des Moines), Brad Kalbfeld (New York), Larry Kilman (Atlanta), Scott Kraft (Jefferson City), John Kreiser (New York), Peter Leabo (Dallas), Kevin LeBoeuf (Los Angeles), Ellen Nimmons (Minneapolis), Dan Sewell (Buffalo), Estes Thompson (Richmond), David Tirrell-Wysocki (Concord)

1978 – Vinnie D'Alessandro (Hartford), Tom Eblen (Louisville), Ruth Gersh (Richmond), Monte Hayes (Caracas), Doug Pizac (Los Angeles), Charles Richards (Dallas), Reed Saxon (Los Angeles), Steve Wilson (Boston)

1979 – Jim Abrams (Tokyo), Peter Banda (Albuquerque), Brian Bland (Los Angeles), Scotty Comegys (Chicago), John Daniszewski (Philadelphia), Frances D’Emilio (San Francisco), Pat Fergus (Albany), Brian Friedman (Des Moines), Sally Hale (Dallas), Susana Hayward (New York), Jill Lawrence (Harrisburg), Warren Levinson (New York), Barry Massey (Kansas City), Phillip Rawls (Nashville), John Rice (Carson City), Linda Sargent (Little Rock), Joel Stashenko (Albany), Robert Wielaard (Brussels)

1980 – Alan Adler (Cleveland), Christopher Bacey (New York), Diane M. Balk (Indianapolis), Jeff Barnard (Providence), Mark Duncan (Cleveland), Bill Kaczor (Tallahassee), Mitchell Landsberg (Reno), Kevin Noblet (New Orleans), Jim Rowley (Baltimore), David Speer (Jackson), Hal Spencer (Providence), Carol J. Williams (Seattle)

1981 – Paul Davenport (Phoenix), Dan Day (Milwaukee), John Flesher (Raleigh), Debra Hale-Shelton (Little Rock), Len Iwanski (Bismarck), Ed McCullough (Albany), Drusilla Menaker (Philadelphia), Kim Mills (New York), Mark Mittelstadt (Des Moines), Roland Rochet (New York), Lee Siegel (Seattle), Marty Steinberg (Baltimore), Bill Vogrin (Kansas City)

1982 – Dorothy Abernathy (Little Rock), Al Behrman (Cincinnati), Tom Cohen (Jefferson City), John Epperson (Chicago), Ric Feld (Atlanta), Kiki Lascaris Georgio (New York), Nick Geranios (Helena), Mike Gracia (Washington), Howard Gros (New Orleans), Dan Juric (East Brunswick), Robert Kimball (New York), Rob Kozloff (Detroit), Bill Menezes (Kansas City), David Ochs (New York), Cecilia White (Los Angeles)

1983 – Elise Amendola (Boston), Edward L. Birk (Boston), Donna Cassata (Albany), Scott Charton (Little Rock), Sue Cross (Columbus), Mark Elias (Chicago), Alan Fram (Newark), David Ginsburg (Washington), Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt, Diana Heidgerd (Miami), Sheila Norman-Culp (New York), Carol Esler Ochs (New York), Jim Reindl (Detroit), Amy Sancetta (Philadelphia), Rande Simpson (New York), Dave Skidmore (Milwaukee), Barbara Worth (New York)

1984 – David Beard (Chicago), Owen Canfield (Oklahoma City), Wayne Chin (Washington), Jack Elliott (Oklahoma City), Kelly P. Kissel (New Orleans), Joe Macenka (Richmond), Eva Parziale (San Francisco), Walt Rastetter (New York), Malcolm Ritter (New York), Keith Robinson (Columbus), Cliff Schiappa (Kansas City), David Sedeño (Dallas), Andrew Selsky (Cheyenne), Patty Woodrow (Washington)

1985 – Beth Grace (Columbus), Betty Kumpf Pizac (Los Angeles)

1986 – Joni Baluh Beall (Richmond), David Beard (Jackson), Tom Coyne (Columbia, SC), Dave DeGrace (Milwaukee), Alan Flippen (Louisville), Jim Gerberich (San Francisco), Howard Goldberg (New York), Mark Hamrick (Dallas), Sandy Kozel (Washington), Arlene Levinson (Boston), Robert Meyers (London), David Morris (Harrisburg), Susan Ragan (New York), Bob Seavey (Lima), Barbara Woike (New York)

1987 – Donna Abu-Nasr (Beirut), Jim Anderson (Mexico City), Dave Bauder (Albany), Chuck Burton (Charlotte), Beth Harris (Indianapolis), Lynne Harris (New York), Steven L. Herman (Charleston, WVa), Elaine Kurtenbach (Tokyo), Rosemarie Mileto (New York), John Rogers (Los Angeles)

1988 – Chris Carola (Albany), Peg Coughlin (Pierre), Frank Eltman (New York), Kathy Gannon (Islamabad), Steve Hart (Washington), Melissa Jordan (Sioux Falls), Bill Pilc (New York), Kelley Shannon (Dallas)

1989 – Charlie Arbogast (Trenton), Susan Boyle (New York), Ted Bridis (Oklahoma City), Paul Randall Dickerson (Nashville), Ron Fournier (Little Rock)

1990 – Frank Fisher (Jackson), Dan Perry (Bucharest), Steve Sakson (Baltimore), Sean Thompson (New York)

1991 – Amanda Kell (Richmond), Santiago Lyon (Cairo), Lisa Pane (Hartford), Wayne Partlow (Washington), Ricardo Reif (Caracas), Bill Sikes (Buffalo)

1992 – Jennifer Garske (Washington), Kerry Huggard (New York)

1993 – Jim Salter (St. Louis)

1994 - Glen Johnson (Boston)

1995 – Elaine Thompson (Houston), Donna Tommelleo (Hartford)

1996 – Patricia N. Casillo (New York), John Khin (New York)

1997 – J. David Ake (Chicago), Martha Bellisle (Carson City), Pamela Collins (Dallas), Madhu Krishnappa Maron (New York), Jim Suhr (Detroit), Jennifer Yates (Baltimore)

1998 – Alan Clendenning (New Orleans), Guthrie Collin (Albany), Mitch Stacy (London)

1999 – Melinda Deslatte (Raleigh), Laura Rauch (Las Vegas)

2000 – Carrie Antlfinger (Milwaukee), Gary Gentile (Los Angeles), Tom Tait (Las Vegas)

2004 - Jim Baltzelle (Dallas)

2005 – Ric Brack (Chicago), Frank Jordans (London)

2006 – Jon Gambrell (Little Rock)

2008 - Steve Braun (Washington)

2013 - Alex Sanz (Atlanta)

Today in History - Nov. 15, 2024

By The Associated Press

Today is Friday, Nov. 15, the 320th day of 2024. There are 46 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 15, 1864, late in the U.S. Civil War, Union forces led by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh (teh-KUM’-seh) Sherman began their “March to the Sea” from Atlanta; the campaign ended with the capture of Savannah, Georgia on Dec. 21.

Also on this date:

In 1777, the Second Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation.

In 1806, explorer Zebulon Pike sighted the mountaintop now known as Pikes Peak in present-day Colorado.

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In 1959, four members of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, were found murdered in their home. (Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were later convicted of the killings and hanged in a case made famous by the Truman Capote book “In Cold Blood.”)

In 1966, the flight of Gemini 12, the final mission of the Gemini program, ended successfully as astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. splashed down safely in the Atlantic after spending four days in orbit. 

In 1969, a quarter of a million protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington against the Vietnam War.

In 2012, the Justice Department announced that BP had agreed to plead guilty to a raft of charges in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and pay a record $4.5 billion, including nearly $1.3 billion in criminal fines.

In 2019, Roger Stone, a longtime friend and ally of President Donald Trump, was convicted of all seven counts in a federal indictment accusing him of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation of whether Trump coordinated with Russia during the 2016 campaign. The president commuted Stone’s 40-month sentence days before he was to report to prison.

In 2022, the world population reached 8 billion, based on United Nations projections.

Today’s Birthdays: Singer Petula Clark is 92. Actor Sam Waterston is 84. Classical conductor Daniel Barenboim is 82. Pop singer Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad (ABBA) is 79. Fashion designer Jimmy Choo is 76. Actor Beverly D’Angelo is 73. News correspondent John Roberts is 68. Former “Tonight Show” bandleader Kevin Eubanks is 67. Actor Jonny Lee Miller is 52. Actor Sean Murray is 47. Golf Hall of Famer Lorena Ochoa is 43. Actor Shailene Woodley is 33. NBA All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns is 29.

Got a photo or story to share?

Connecting is a daily newsletter published Monday through Friday that reaches 1,900 retired and former Associated Press employees, present-day employees, and news industry and journalism school colleagues. It began in 2013. Past issues can be found by clicking Connecting Archive in the masthead. Its author, Paul Stevens, retired from the AP in 2009 after a 36-year career as a newsman in Albany and St. Louis, correspondent in Wichita, chief of bureau in Albuquerque, Indianapolis and Kansas City, and Central Region vice president based in Kansas City.

Got a story to share? A favorite memory of your AP days? Don't keep them to yourself. Share with your colleagues by sending to Ye Olde Connecting Editor. And don't forget to include photos!

Here are some suggestions:

- Connecting "selfies" - a word and photo self-profile of you and your career, and what you are doing today. Both for new members and those who have been with us a while.

- Second chapters - You finished a great career. Now tell us about your second (and third and fourth?) chapters of life.

- Spousal support - How your spouse helped in supporting your work during your AP career. 

- My most unusual story - tell us about an unusual, off the wall story that you covered.

- "A silly mistake that you make"- a chance to 'fess up with a memorable mistake in your journalistic career.

- Multigenerational AP families - profiles of families whose service spanned two or more generations.

- Volunteering - benefit your colleagues by sharing volunteer stories - with ideas on such work they can do themselves.

- First job - How did you get your first job in journalism?

- Most unusual place a story assignment took you.

Paul Stevens

Editor, Connecting newsletter

paulstevens46@gmail.com