Connecting - Sept. 27, 2024

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Sept. 27, 2024

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Colleagues,

Good Friday morning on this Sept. 27, 2024,

We follow up our earlier report on the death of longtime Louisville AP broadcast editor Tom Watson with a well-done wire story written by his former colleague Bruce Schreiner.

It was shared by Ed Staats, retired Louisville chief of bureau, who was among AP people who attended Tom’s funeral service on Wednesday. Ed noted: “It was a sending-away experience befitting Tom Watson. It was full of history and references to rural Kentucky, of which Tom was quite proud…Bruce Schreiner did a masterful job with his news obit that really honored Tom's contributions over the long run.”

A LINK TO THE PAST: Colleague Valerie Komor shares: Here is a link to the mini documentaries made by the AP Corporate Archives since 2013. Scroll down to “Counting the Vote, Calling the Race: Election Night at the Associated Press,” from 2016. Narrated by the late and greatly missed Tom Jory. Click here to view.

Our thoughts and prayers to those of you in the path of Hurricane Helene. May you be safe.

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

Paul

Tom Watson, longtime Associated Press broadcast editor in Kentucky, has died at age 85

ABOVE: AP Kentucky Broadcast Editor Tom Watson holds his plaque on his induction into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in Lexington, Ky., April 14, 2009.

RIGHT: Tom with Terry Anderson at the ceremony. (AP Photos/Adam Yeomans)

By BRUCE SCHREINER

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Tom Watson, a hall of fame broadcast reporter whose long career of covering breaking news included decades as a broadcast editor for The Associated Press in Kentucky, has died. He was 85.

Watson’s baritone voice and sharp wit were fixtures in the AP’s Louisville bureau, where he wrote broadcast reports and cultivated strong connections with reporters at radio and TV stations spanning the state. His coverage ranged from compiling weather-related school closings to filing urgent reports on big, breaking stories in his home state, maintaining a calm demeanor regardless of the story.

Watson died Saturday at Baptist Health in Louisville, according to Hall-Taylor Funeral Home in his hometown of Taylorsville, 34 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Louisville. No cause of death was given.

Watson was the “consummate radio newsman of his era,” said retired AP Kentucky bureau chief Ed Staats, who worked with Watson for years.

“His news writing for the state broadcast wire, I think, undoubtedly reached more Kentuckians than any other” news organization in the Bluegrass State, Staats said by phone on Tuesday. “When he wrote a news summary in Kentucky, with the AP serving every significant radio station with a commitment to news, they would hear AP stories fashioned by Tom.”

Thomas Shelby Watson was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2009. His 50-year journalism career began at WBKY at the University of Kentucky, according to his hall of fame biography.

Watson led news departments at WAKY in Louisville and at a radio station in St. Louis before starting his decades-long AP career. Under his leadership, a special national AP award went to WAKY for contributing 1,000 stories used on the wire in one year, his hall of fame biography said. Watson and his WAKY team also received a National Headliner Award for coverage of a chemical plant explosion, it said.

At the AP, Watson started as state broadcast editor in late 1973 and retired in mid-2009. Known affectionately as “Wattie” to his colleagues, he staffed the early shift in the Louisville bureau, writing and filing broadcast and print stories while fielding calls from AP members.

“Tom was an old-school state broadcast editor who produced a comprehensive state broadcast report that members wanted,” said Adam Yeomans, regional director-South for the AP, who as a bureau chief worked with Watson from 2006 to 2009. “He kept AP ahead on many breaking stories.”

Watson also wrote several non-fiction books as well as numerous magazine and newspaper articles. From 1988 through 1993, he operated “The Salt River Arcadian,” a monthly newspaper in Taylorsville.

Genealogy and local history were favorite topics for his writing and publishing. Watson was an avid University of Kentucky basketball fan and had a seemingly encyclopedic memory of the school’s many great teams from the past.

His survivors include his wife, Susan Scholl Watson of Taylorsville; his daughters, Sharon Elizabeth Staudenheimer and her husband, Thomas; Wendy Lynn Casas; and Kelly Thomas Watson, all of Louisville; his two sons, Chandler Scholl Watson and his wife, Nicole, of Taylorsville; and Ellery Scholl Watson of Lexington; his sister, Barbara King and her husband, Gordon, of Louisville; and his nine grandchildren.

Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Hall-Taylor Funeral Home of Taylorsville.

Click here. for link to this story.

My first journalism job

Randall Dickerson - It was 1964 and I was a 19-year-old Top 40 disc jockey in Terre Haute, Indiana. DJs were pretty expendable in those days. I got canned. Here I was in college, had a car note and, now, no job.

I went down the street to the big AM-FM-TV company in town. The only opening they had was for a weekend radio newscaster. They liked how I sounded on the air and they gave me the job - never asking if I could type (I couldn’t). Over the next few weeks, I did five-minute newscasts from hand-written notes and a lot of AP copy.

Within a month, I was a typist. The station hired me full time and had me work with a terrific print and broadcast guy who hammered me onto a journalist.

Memories of favorite watering holes, restaurants near AP bureaus

Dave Skidmore - As Malcom Barr recalled, Mr. Eagan's was the AP haunt when the DC bureau was at 1300 Connecticut Avenue. It also was the gathering place for wire service reporters working out of the Treasury Department pressroom. There, representatives of The AP, Reuters, Bloomberg News, Dow Jones, and other services would put aside competitive rivalry to share pitchers of beer. A picture of the late, great AP sportswriter Tom Seppy (doubtless a loyal customer) hung on the wall.

When the pitchers got low, a middle-aged waitress with a German accent named Erma would sternly order us, "Drink up." We always complied.

We called our meetings "choir practice" because Marty Crutsinger, the AP's legendary economic correspondent, when leaving the AP newsroom or Treasury pressroom at the end of the day, would loudly announce in his Texas twang that he was headed to choir practice. That was true. Marty was and is a stickler for accuracy. He was indeed going to choir practice at Foundry Methodist Church on 16th Street. But, he went by way of Mr. Eagan's where he loosened up his vocal chords with a beer or two.

Mr. Eagan's closed in 1999. Owner Jim Eagan explained to The Washington Post, "People aren't drinking lunch anymore. People are drinking iced tea and Coke. I can't afford it." So, choir practice moved to Harry's Bar at 11th and E streets (now closed), Jay's Saloon in Arlington (now closed), and Whitlow's in Arlington (now closed). Choir practice survives in the post-pandemic era as a monthly Zoom gathering of myself; Marty; AP alumni Larry Margasak and Matt Yancey; Reuters retiree Glenn Somerville; and Bloomberg retiree Scott Dykema. We are sometimes joined by Jonathan Nicholson of HuffPost, the only working journalist left among us.44

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Viorel Urma - former AP reporter in Bucharest, Vienna and New York (1973-2014) - My experience with pubs near AP bureaus is somewhat different.

The only time I was allowed to travel to the West by Romania's communist authorities (before I had to leave the country for good) I toured by invitation the AP bureaus in Frankfurt and Vienna. Larry Heinzerling was the chief of news operations in West Germany, including AP's German service. Across the street from our bureau in Frankfurt at Moselstrasse 27, I noticed a big sign: Dr. Muller's Sex World. As curious as somebody who is released from prison and stops at the first bordello on his way home, I sprinted to see the first porno movie in my life. I paid the equivalent of $10 for a ticket, which included a little box of Swiss chocolates. The show started and after some 15 minutes two guys seated several rows behind me started hyperventilating, while strange noises and moans came from a corner of the hall. All of a sudden, I realized that I was sitting in the crossfire of action: there was "action" on the screen and "action" in the theater, something that I did not expect. I thought that Dr. Muller's moviegoers will be as disciplined as the masses of film buffs seeing communist-sanctioned motion pictures behind the Iron Curtain. But apparently they were not. As the moans got closer and more intense, I said to myself: "Geez, I'd better get the f--- outta here. It's more dangerous than reporting from Romania," and I left. I was disappointed by the artistic merits of the movies and I felt guilty for spending $10 for a tiny box of chocolates. The next day, from the generous per diem allowance approved by New York (the year was 1980 and Keith Fuller was the general manager), I bought my wife two skirts and two blouses. As far as I know, Dr. Muller's is still in business today at the same address, an illustration of the robustness of the German economy along the years. But Moselstrasse 27 does no longer house the AP operation in Germany. The AP's German language news service, which used to be highly profitable over time, had to be liquidated for $13 million in 2010, shortly after the Great Recession.

Connecting sky shots

John Bolt - The sky at dusk in Morgantown, WV, at a recent WVU soccer match.

Roger Schneider - I’ve loved seeing all of the rainbow photos shared so just had to send you this image I shot just after sunset this morning at Potawatomi State Park, about a mile from our new home in Door County, Wisconsin. Not a rainbow, but a fogbow. Not colorful but something I’d never seen before.

Connecting wishes Happy Birthday

On Saturday to…

On Sunday to…

Stories of interest

The National Trust for Local News keeps buying local newspapers. Here’s what they’ve learned. (Nieman Lab)

By Sarah Scire

Atlanta — When newspaper veteran Ross McDuffie became the first-ever chief portfolio officer for the National Trust for Local News, the nonprofit organization owned two dozen newspapers in Colorado and generated around $5 million in earned revenue.

A little more than a year and a half later, the Trust has grown rapidly by nearly every measure. After new rounds of acquisitions and launching its first new local newspaper, the National Trust for Local News currently has:

65 newspapers across three states (Colorado, Maine, and Georgia)

500 employees, about half of whom are journalists

100,000 paying subscribers

300,000 copies of a print product distributed per month

$50 million in earned revenue

2.5 million unique monthly visitors

Last week, McDuffie shared these figures with a full room at the Online News Association’s annual conference. Attendees had gathered to hear when — and how — to revive a legacy brand, or start something new in local news. The Trust has done both.

Read more here. Shared by Valerie Komor, Myron Belkind.

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Hoda Kotb is leaving NBC’s ‘Today’ show early next year (AP)

By MARK KENNEDY

NEW YORK (AP) — Hoda Kotb, a fixture at NBC for more than two decades, says she will leave her morning perch on the “Today” show early next year, telling staffers “it’s time.”

In a memo to her team — and later in an emotional on-air reveal Thursday — Kotb said her 60th birthday this summer helped trigger the departure: “I saw it all so clearly: my broadcast career has been beyond meaningful, a new decade of my life lies ahead, and now my daughters and my mom need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie.”

Kotb has co-anchored the first two hours of “Today” with Savannah Guthrie since 2018, filling in after Matt Lauer was fired amid sexual harassment allegations. She continued to co-host of the fourth hour of the morning show with Jenna Bush Hager, having previously hosted it alongside Kathie Lee Gifford. Kotb first joined NBC News as a correspondent for “Dateline” in 1998, and later joined “Today” in 2007.

Her daughters are Haley, 7, and Hope, 5.

Kotb was surrounded by her co-workers when she told viewers of her decision, saying, “This is the hardest thing in the world” and “I’ve been practicing so I wouldn’t cry, but anyway, I did.”

Read more here.

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The Axe Files with David Axelrod: Ep. 595 — Kasie Hunt

Ep. 595 — Kasie Hunt

The Axe Files with David Axelrod

As a child, journalist Kasie Hunt eagerly awaited the arrival of “Time” magazine each week. She loved current events, which eventually piqued her interest in national security and journalism. She joined David to talk about growing up in a post-war period and watching 9/11 puncture that feeling of safety, covering Jan. 6 as a Capitol Hill reporter, what advice she would give a young campaign journalist, starting a new job at CNN while learning she had a brain tumor, and what she learned from that life-altering experience.

Listen here on Apple Podcasts.

Shared by Dennis Conrad.

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Smartmatic and Newsmax settle defamation case involving 2020 election (Washington Post)

By Jeremy Barr

Voting technology company Smartmatic and conservative cable channel Newsmax have reached a settlement, averting a defamation trial that would have begun Monday over allegations that Newsmax personalities and guests spread lies about the 2020 election and Smartmatic’s role in it.

Details of the “confidential” settlement were not released. The settlement came as the process of picking a jury was underway, with the trial expected to kick off next week.

“Newsmax is pleased to announce it has resolved the litigation brought by Smartmatic through a confidential settlement,” said a Newsmax spokesperson.

Smartmatic settled a similar lawsuit against far-right One America News in April, also for an undisclosed sum. The company still has an ongoing lawsuit against Fox News, which could reach trial next year.

Read more here. Shared by Dennis Conrad.

The Final Word

Why the Debut Issue of America’s First Newspaper Was Also the Publication’s Last

On this day in 1690, “Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick” attracted colonial officials’ ire by repeating a scandalous rumor and condemning a British alliance with the Mohawk

Meilan Solly

Senior Associate Digital Editor, History

Once you get over the archaic language, the first newspaper published in North America seems largely innocuous, its pages filled with reports on dramatic events like a smallpox outbreak, a devastating fire and troop movements. Yet Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick—issued in Boston by English expatriate Benjamin Harris on September 25, 1690—so angered colonial authorities that they shut down the paper after just four days. The first issue of the four-page publication also proved to be its last, and it took another 14 years for homegrown journalism to return to British America.

“It is hardly surprising … that Harris’ bold attempt should have failed,” wrote historian Charles E. Clark in 1991. “Seventeenth-century assumptions about printing and authority combined with the extremely uneasy political atmosphere of the moment to make a publication like Publick Occurrences simply intolerable.”

Harris was a publisher and writer who had fled England amid backlash for printing anti-Catholic pamphlets. Settling in Boston in 1686, he’d opened a popular coffeehouse where locals gathered to discuss current events and the latest books. As colonial printer and historian Isaiah Thomas later said, Harris was “a brisk asserter” of the right to free expression, as well as “the most ingenious and innocent companion that I had ever met with.”

Read more here. Shared by Paul Albright.

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.)

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), Dick Carelli (Charleston, WVa), Dennis Coston (Richmond), 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), 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), 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), 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), 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 – 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 – 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), 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 – Ted Bridis (Oklahoma City), Charlie Arbogast (Trenton), 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)

2006 – Jon Gambrell (Little Rock)

2008 - Steve Braun (Washington)

2013 - Alex Sanz (Atlanta)

Today in History - Sept. 27, 2024

By The Associated Press

Today is Friday, Sept. 27, the 271st day of 2024. There are 95 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 27, 1996, in Afghanistan, the Taliban, a band of former seminary students, drove the government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani out of Kabul, captured the capital and executed former leader Najibullah.

Also on this date:

In 1779, John Adams was named by Congress to negotiate the Revolutionary War’s peace terms with Britain.

In 1903, a Southern Railway mail train derailed near Danville, Virginia, killing 11; the accident inspired the famous ballad, “Wreck of the Old 97.”

In 1939, Warsaw, Poland, surrendered after weeks of resistance to invading forces from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.

In 1940, Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, formally allying the World War II Axis powers.

In 1964, the government publicly released the report of the Warren Commission, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy.

In 1979, Congress gave its final approval to forming the U.S. Department of Education.

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush announced in a nationally broadcast address that he was eliminating all U.S. battlefield nuclear weapons and called on the Soviet Union to match the gesture.

In 1994, more than 350 Republican congressional candidates gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to sign the “Contract with America,” a 10-point platform they pledged to enact if voters sent a GOP majority to the House.

In 2013, President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke by telephone, the first conversation between American and Iranian leaders in more than 30 years.

In 2018, during a day-long hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christine Blasey Ford said she was “100 percent” certain that she was sexually assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when they were teenagers, and Kavanaugh then told senators that he was “100 percent certain” he had done no such thing.

In 2021, R&B singer R. Kelly was convicted in a sex trafficking trial in New York, after decades of avoiding criminal responsibility for numerous allegations of misconduct with young women and children.

Today’s Birthdays: Musician Randy Bachman (Bachman-Turner Overdrive) is 81. Actor Liz Torres is 77. Baseball Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt is 75. Singer and actor Shaun Cassidy is 66. Comedian Marc Maron is 61. Actor Gwyneth Paltrow is 52. Actor Indira Varma is 51. Musician-actor Carrie Brownstein is 50. Actor Anna Camp is 42. Rapper Lil Wayne is 42. Musician Avril Lavigne (AV’-rihl la-VEEN’) is 40. Tennis player Simona Halep is 33. Actor Jenna Ortega is 22.

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