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Oct. 21, 2024

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Colleagues,

Good Monday morning on this Oct. 21, 2024,

It was a night of laughter, of reminiscing, of remembering.

Associated Press retirees gathered in Kansas City on Saturday night for the first Jack Stokes Retiree Dinner – an dinner suggested and paid for by the AP.

Their combined AP service years numbered in the many hundreds...and the number of stories told that night in the many thousands! Not sure if any fact checkers were in attendance!?!

Nearly 40 retirees and their guests were treated to, what else, but some of the finest barbeque fare in a city known for its ribs, brisket and burnt ends – at Jack Stack’s BBQ near downtown Union Station.

In an informal program that followed, our colleague Kelly Smith Tunney - retired vice president for Corporate Communications (right) - told the group about Stokes' career and shared some highlights of his 41-year AP career that included work as company spokesman, key figure in the minority intern program and work in AP Broadcast. He died in 2012 at 73.

A moment of silence was observed to honor Jack and all of our colleagues who have passed away.

The retiree who traveled the furthest - Janis Magin Meierdiercks, who flew in from Hawaii.

Shirley Christian, the only Pulitzer Prize winner I know who makes truffles, brought samples of her culinary fare to each attendee.

Oh, and about my AP softball jersey in the photo (by Peter Leabo) with Kelly above - it is a treasured gift from members of the AP/NY softball team and was called to duty for this special occasion.

HAPPY 86^th, BARBARA – One of the AP’s most beloved people, Barbara King Lord, celebrates her 86^th birthday today. If you would like to drop a note to our former AP writing coach, whose work touched so many of us (not to mention hundreds of AP members), she’s at - bockl38@hotmail.com 

My favorite memory of Barbara – racing her with staff and members on a go-kart track at the Lake of the Ozarks where she was speaker at a Missouri APME convention. She gave no quarter!

Here’s to a great day – be safe, stay healthy, live it to your fullest!

Paul

Who won? How AP calls the election, in ‘single largest act of journalism’



The Associated Press will call winners in thousands of races this election year, and it is adding even more transparency to the process to combat misinformation.

The Associated Press's Julie Pace, right, looks over a headline with David Scott on Feb. 5, 2020. Pace is now executive editor of the AP; David Scott is now the AP's vice president and head of news strategy and operations. (Jenny Kane/AP)

By Elahe Izadi

The Washington Post

October 19, 2024

On election night — or, let’s face it, more likely election week, or weeks — Americans will finally find out whom they’ve chosen to lead their nation.

But the task of reporting the results doesn’t fall to a government body or federal official. Rather, in this country, figuring out the result of the central tenet of democracy is left to the media — and especially the Associated Press, which has one of the country’s largest vote-calling operations and has been doing this work for more than 175 years.

This year, the news service will call 6,823 winners — assuming no races go to runoffs — including winners in every statewide, House and state legislative race. It’s a massive endeavor, involving more than 5,000 people, and one that the AP internally refers to as “the single largest act of journalism that exists,” says Executive Editor Julie Pace.

Thousands of news organizations rely on the AP for reporting who won, including NPR, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Univision, Google and Apple. Some, like The Washington Post, use the AP for the vast majority of races, but for select races also use data from other nonpartisan organizations, such as Edison Research, and their own election models. Many television news networks have their own decision desks that call or project winners using data from Edison or other firms.

This year, the AP wants to reveal more about its process to inspire confidence in the results during such a tense political environment — an effort it has ramped up since the 2020 election, when Americans waited days to learn that Democratic candidate Joe Biden won the election.

Race calls that year were especially dramatic. Fox News first projected that Biden won Arizona on election night, followed hours later by the AP. The outlets faced some skepticism and criticism for making the Arizona call at a time when so many ballots were still uncounted and the results were so close; then-President Donald Trump was especially infuriated with Fox. Other TV networks waited days to call Arizona for Biden. In the end, Fox and the AP — and their methodologies — were right all along.

“It’s a huge responsibility. We know that when we call the race, it has to be right. There’s no other option,” Pace says. And it’s not just the presidential race. “We call races up and down the ballot, and they all have to be right because there is no other source of that race call in that time frame. That’s why we have stepped into this place.”

The AP says its accuracy rate for the past several general elections surpasses 99.9 percent. It never made a call in the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush, when Florida’s incredibly close margin forced a recount that was eventually ended by the Supreme Court. The last erroneous call the AP made in a presidential contest occurred during the 2008 primaries, when it reversed its call that Hillary Clinton won Missouri over Barack Obama.

Read more here. Shared by Myron Belkind.

More on Megan Marshack’s AP work

Richard Boudreaux - This New York Times obituary mentions Megan Marshack’s unsuccessful tryout for an AP reporting position in 1975 but not her prior stint on the AP radio desk in Washington. I worked the overnight shift on the World Desk in the early 1970s and remember getting calls from her. A big story out of Europe, Africa or Asia would move on the wire and within minutes Megan would call asking the desk to message the correspondent with a request for audio report for AP Radio. The radio desk’s usual practice was to send those requests to the World Desk by message. But Megan wanted to make sure things moved quickly, so she picked up the phone. I admired her for that. She had a booming voice that conveyed a sense of urgency. If you worked that shift and were getting sleepy around 4 a.m., that voice would jolt you wide awake.

On CBS’ Tony Dokoupil

Craig Klugman - Here are my thoughts on the public scolding of Tony Dokoupil of CBS. (See this story for background.)

He did nothing wrong. Moreover, the public criticism of the way he interviewed Ta-Nehisi Coates has one serious drawback: It will make ALL correspondents and producers think twice when they are about to interview a prominent, but perhaps controversial, figure.

Favorite eateries near bureaus

Tom Kent - One more nomination for favorite eateries near the AP, this from when we were at 450 W 33 St.

My favorite, to which I often dragged my AP Standards colleague Dave Minthorn, was the Cheyenne Diner. Unlike many diners, its menu included buffalo burgers. Someone told me that buffalo meat has only one-fourth the fat of beef. From that, I calculated that a double buffalo burger with cheese would do me no more harm than on ordinary hamburger. It therefore became my regular choice. (I only later learned that fat and calories are not the same thing.)

The good old days

Ed Williams - Circa 1977-78, the good old days...

There's dear friend, the late great John Williams, city editor of The Montgomery Advertiser, a wise newspaperman I learned a lot from, and loved and respected. I was a pallbearer at John’s funeral.

Those were such good times in Alabama journalism. Shout out to reporter Mary Reeves Hasselwander in the photo! Is that copy editor Charlie Croft in the background? We had two daily papers in the capital city, Alabama Journal and The Advertiser. Yep those were the good old days.

And what’s that weird-looking contraption to the left of John’s elbow?

Farewell, Frank

Norm Abelson - Wow! Jon Stevens' piece on his beloved cat Frank (in Friday’s Connecting) hit me right in my soft spot.

It's so heartening that in these dour times the “small” stories of love, caring and soulfulness can move us simultaneously to tears and smiles. A poet once wrote: “Love is not love until love is vulnerable.” How true.

As an old guy who has experienced the loss of many – including two family cats – Jon may I say, over time the pain will abate – the love will not.

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Sonya Zalubowski - It is so beautiful and so correct, I’ve learned from my own kitty teacher, my rescue ragdoll kitty kichu. Your tribute brought tears to my eyes, my own kitty, my first ever, now aged to senior status. What a lovely reminder to enjoy what we have as we have it!

Thank you and may the sorrow at the loss eventually give way to the thanks for the gift of so much love! Thank you for sharing.

Newspapers in art

Charlie Hanley – A 1900 poster for El Pueblo by the great Joaquin Sorolla, at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Valencia, Spain. The populist newspaper (The People) was founded by turn-of-the-century Valencian author Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and survived him, only to be suppressed in 1939 at the end of the Spanish Civil War.

Best of AP — First Winner

Africans recruited to work in Russia say they were duped into building drones for use in Ukraine

Other outlets have written about a plant in Tatarstan where Russia is making the drones swarming Ukraine’s skies. But Emma Burrows was the first to speak to the African women recruited to work there.

She tracked them down online, finding a chat group for employees buried deep inside social media that included their contact information. This was yet another demonstration of a security lapse on Russia’s part and dogged reporting on Burrows’ part. 

The women were told not to speak to outsiders and are heavily monitored — and many never responded or were too afraid to be interviewed. But a handful agreed to speak after Burrows carefully gained their trust. 

She exchanged voice messages every few days with one woman for months. Some of the women complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching. 

In Kyiv, Lori Hinnant confirmed the differences in materials and a change in quality from the Iranian-made drones to the ones made in Russia. Meanwhile, Burrows pored through hundreds of pages of documents about the plant and analyzed them with Hinnant. The two also analyzed publicly posted video to match it visually with what the leaked documents showed. Hinnant helped shepherd the reporting throughout, and then Brian Friedman did a careful edit, helping to highlight the extremely precarious position these women are in.

Read more here.

Best of AP — Second Winner

AP traces the printing of Trump’s ‘God Bless America’ Bibles to the country he accuses of stealing American jobs: China

As Richard Lardner in Washington started reporting on former President Donald Trump’s for-profit ventures, he got a tip that Trump’s Bibles were printed in China, leading him to a labyrinth of ironies, conflicts of interest and even accusations of blasphemy.

Teaming up with Beijing’s Dake Kang, the pair verified the tip through interviews with a printing company in China. Based on databases that use customs data to track exports and imports, Lardner and Kang calculated the estimated value of three separate shipments at $342,000, or less than $3 per Bible. The minimum price for the Trump-backed Bible is $59.99, putting the potential sales revenue at about $7 million.

While it is not news that China is one of the world’s leading producers of Bibles, it may be news to readers that Trump’s administration chose to exempt Bibles from tariffs imposed on billions of dollars of Chinese goods.

This exclusive story explained how selling products at prices that exceed their value may even be considered a campaign contribution. It also noted that there’s an opportunity for Trump to sell thousands of his Bibles to the state of Oklahoma which plans to spend $3 million on Bibles that are a close match to Trump’s edition.

The story uncovered that a U.S. publisher backed away from the project under pressure from religious scholars who denounced the merger of Scripture and U.S. founding documents as a “toxic mix” that would fuel Christian nationalism sentiments in evangelical churches. Others called it blasphemous.

Personalities from Mark Cuban to J.B. Pritzker to Bill Maher and George Takai mentioned it publicly.

Read more here.

Connecting wishes Happy Birthday

Barbara King Lord

John Montgomery

Stories of interest

Nicholas Daniloff, 89, Dies; Reporter’s Arrest in Moscow Ignited a Firestorm (New York Times)

By Robert D. McFadden

Nicholas Daniloff, an American news correspondent whose 1986 arrest in Moscow on trumped-up espionage charges ignited a political firestorm in the United States and an international crisis in the latter stages of the Cold War, died on Thursday at an assisted living facility in Cambridge, Mass. He was 89.

His daughter, Miranda Daniloff Mancusi, confirmed the death.

With intrigues fit for a John le Carré spy novel, the contretemps in Moscow landed Mr. Daniloff in a notorious prison there, set up his exchange for a K.G.B. agent snared in New York City, led to the expulsion of scores of Soviet and American diplomats and suspected spies, and nearly wrecked a summit meeting between President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Mr. Daniloff, who later became a university professor and director of a journalism school in Boston, wrote several books on Soviet and Russian life, including one that twinned his own ordeal and that of a forebear who was arrested and exiled to Siberia for joining the failed plot of the so-called Decembrists to overthrow Czar Nicholas I of Russia in 1825 — a deed revered and romanticized in Soviet histories.

Mr. Daniloff was a veteran correspondent whose knowledge of Russian language and culture led to assignments in Moscow with United Press International in the 1960s and with U.S. News & World Report in the 1980s. He was five days short of completing that five-and-a-half-year second tour when the K.G.B. trap — a betrayal by an old friend — was sprung.

Read more here. Shared by Richard Chady.

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Fox’s Bret Baier acknowledges ‘mistake’ in Harris interview over airing of Trump clip (AP)

By DAVID BAUDER

Fox News anchor Bret Baier says he “made a mistake” during his interview with Kamala Harris in not airing video of a Donald Trump comment, something Harris pointed out to him in real time.

Baier made that admission on Thursday roughly 24 hours after his interview with the Democratic presidential candidate was aired. Just under 8 million people watched the session, Harris’ first sit-down with a Fox News Channel journalist during the campaign.

It wasn’t immediately clear, however, what Baier meant by saying he made a mistake.

Their exchange over the Trump video, one of the most contentious of the interview, came after Harris criticized her Republican opponent for saying that he might have to call out the National Guard or military to deal with “the enemy within,” whom he defined as “radical left lunatics.”

Baier then said his colleague, Harris Faulkner, had asked Trump about his “enemy within” comment earlier in the day, “and this is how he responded.” The clip showed Trump saying he wasn’t threatening anybody, and criticized “phony investigations” of him, cracking a joke his audience laughed at.

Read more here.

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Son writes hilarious, loving obituary for his dad: ‘He is God’s problem now’ (Washington Post)

By Cathy Free

When Charles Boehm sat down in his Houston home to write his father’s obituary, he was stumped.

“I’d never written an obituary before, so I decided to Google, ‘What do you put in an obituary?’” said Boehm. His father, Robert Adolph Boehm, died Oct. 6 at age 74 after falling and hitting his head in his Clarendon, Tex., apartment.

Boehm, 41, found the usual tips online about including a summary of the person’s life and a list of survivors. Then he stumbled upon an old obituary for Joe Heller of Centerbrook, Conn.

“Joe Heller made his last undignified and largely irreverent gesture on September 8, 2019, signing off on a life, in his words, ‘generally well-lived and with few regrets,” it began. “When the doctors confronted his daughters with the news last week that ‘your father is a very sick man,’ in unison they replied, ‘you have no idea.’”

Read more here. Shared by Mark Mittelstadt.

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 ADDITION:

Susan Boyle, New York, 1989

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 – 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), Robert Kimball (New York), Rob Kozloff (Detroit), Bill Menezes (Kansas City), David Ochs (New York), Cecilia White (Los Angeles)

1983 – Elise Amendola (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), 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), Ricardo Reif (Caracas), Bill Sikes (Buffalo)

1992 – Kerry Huggard (New York)

1993 – Jim Salter (St. Louis)

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

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

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

2000 – Gary Gentile (Los Angeles)

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 - Oct. 21, 2024

By The Associated Press

Today is Monday, Oct. 21, the 295th day of 2024. There are 71 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Oct. 21, 2014, Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius was convicted of culpable homicide for shooting and killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. The conviction was later upgraded to murder; Pistorius was released on parole in January 2024.

Also on this date:

In 1797, the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, also known as “Old Ironsides,” was christened in Boston’s harbor.

In 1805, a British fleet commanded by Adm. Horatio Nelson defeated a French-Spanish fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar; Nelson, however, was killed.

In 1940, Ernest Hemingway’s novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls” was first published.

In 1944, U.S. troops captured the German city of Aachen (AH’-kuhn) — the first German city to fall to American forces in World War II.

In 1959, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum opened in New York.

In 1966, 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a coal waste landslide engulfed a school and some 20 houses in Aberfan, Wales.

In 2013, a seventh grader at Sparks Middle School in Sparks, Nevada, shot and killed a teacher and wounded two classmates before taking his own life.

In 2021, Actor Alec Baldwin was pointing a gun on a movie set in New Mexico when it went off and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza. Charges of involuntary manslaughter against Baldwin were dropped in July 2024.

Today’s Birthdays: Rock singer Manfred Mann is 84. TV’s Judge Judy Sheindlin is 82. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is 75. Former first daughter Patti Davis is 72. Film director Catherine Hardwicke is 69. Actor Ken Watanabe (wah-tah-NAH’-bee) is 65. Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., is 53. Actor Will Estes is 46. Reality TV star Kim Kardashian (kahr-DASH’-ee-uhn) is 44. MLB pitcher Zack Greinke is 41. Actor Glenn Powell is 36. Country singer Kane Brown is 31. Singer Doja Cat 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