Connecting
May 6, 2022



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Colleagues,
 
Good Friday morning on this May 6, 2022,
 
We bring you in today’s Connecting the 2021 annual report of The Associated Press.
 
It leads with a letter from newly appointed chair Gracia C. Martore and the AP’s president and CEO, Daisy Veerasingham. It is available online here.
 
In the letter, they said, “Protecting our teams in Ukraine, Russia and across the globe remains AP’s top priority as we continue to report from some of the world’s most dangerous places, especially during a global pandemic.”
 
Some of the numbers in the report:
 
4 billion people see news from The Associated Press every day.
 
The AP network: 243 locations worldwide, 10 regional editing hubs, 96 countries, unrivaled 50-state footprint with a reporter in every U.S. statehouse.
 
AP’s 2021 output: 440,000 stories, 1 million photos, nearly 82,000 news and sports videos, more than 23,000 hours of live video across five channels.
 
On social: Twitter: 15.4 million followers, Facebook: 949,000 followers, LinkedIn: 234,000 followers, Instagram: 686,000 followers, YouTube: 1.78 million subscribers and over 2.8 billion views.
 
We produce the AP report in English, Spanish and Arabic.
 
Have a great weekend – be safe, stay healthy!
 
Paul
 
AP releases 2021 Annual Report


A LETTER FROM THE CHAIR AND CEO
 
Gracia C. Martore, Chair
 
Daisy Veerasingham, President and CEO
 
In 2021 we celebrated 175 years of The Associated Press — nearly two centuries of serving as an eyewitness to history. As we write this letter, history continues to unfold in Ukraine, where Russian forces are attacking, and a humanitarian crisis is growing. AP journalists are there, reporting the facts and showing the world what is happening on the ground.
 
These intrepid journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears, relaying heart-wrenching details and providing agonizing visuals of the Russian offensive. A brave team in Mariupol spent 20 days in the besieged city, documenting the reality of life there. Their photos of the aftermath of the shelling of a maternity hospital — with pregnant women carried out on stretchers — became defining images of the Russian assault. As the only international journalists on the ground amid a communications blackout, an AP video journalist wrote in a harrowing first-person account that “if not for us, there would be nothing.”
 
Protecting our teams in Ukraine, Russia and across the globe remains AP’s top priority as we continue to report from some of the world’s most dangerous places, especially during a global pandemic.
 
In Gaza in 2021 we documented the 11-day war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas militant group. An Israeli airstrike destroyed the building housing our own bureau in May, and our journalists kept telling the story. In the chaotic moments when AP’s team evacuated the building, they also sprung into action, grabbing their gear and rushing to a nearby tower to capture on live video the building crumbling. They then went on to cover the conflict. The loss of our bureau took an intense personal toll on our staff, but they persevered to report the facts.
 
Last year brought with it the largest evacuation of AP staff in modern history when the Taliban again rose to power in Afghanistan. Our team in Kabul and beyond broke multiple stories during the U.S. withdrawal: 12 members of the U.S. military killed in a strike outside the Kabul airport; two U.S. lawmakers flying unannounced to Kabul, prompting fury; and the launch of a U.S. drone strike against the Islamic State.
 
Read more here.
 
AP announces 1 director, 4 incumbents at annual meeting
 
NEW YORK — One new director and four incumbents were named to The Associated Press board of directors, it was announced April 27 following the news cooperative’s annual meeting at its New York headquarters.
 
Joining the cooperative’s board as a new director is Mark Adams, president and CEO of Adams Publishing Group, LLC, who will serve the role of a director representing small market newspapers.
 
Adams Publishing Group, launched by Adams in 2013 with the purpose of building a community news company, employs 2,000 print and digital professionals in 13 states. Adams had previously consulted for various publishing businesses, including his family holding company, and for two decades prior managed the business-to-business, medical and financial portfolios for M/C Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm specializing in media.
 
The two incumbents reelected to the board are:
 
Bill Hoffman, president of Hoffmann Communications
 
Michael Newhouse, co-president of Advance
 
The two incumbents reappointed to the board are:
 
Isaac Lee, founder of Exile Content LLC
 
Gracia C. Martore, former president and CEO of Tegna, Inc.
Martore (at right), who had been vice chair, becomes chair of the AP Board of Directors. She was elected to the AP board in 2013.

Martore succeeds Steven R. Swartz, president and CEO of Hearst Corporation, who has completed a five-year term as chairman. Swartz was elected to the AP board in 2009.
 
The AP board has 13 directors. Directors are elected by members or appointed to the AP board by directors.
 
Each director is eligible to serve up to a total of nine years, although the chair is exempt from that rule.
 


More on retirement of Jim Kennedy
 
Jon K. Rust - former AP board member and vice-chair - Jim had a profound influence on the direction of the Associated Press in helping to develop its digital strategy at a time when it was under tremendous competitive threat – and the industry was uncertain in how to respond to the search engines. I also remember in particular his instrumental role in the launch of AP Mobile and AP News, which helped AP’s editors and business developers gain invaluable consumer intelligence. It was a bold move, contrary to AP’s past, to create direct-to-consumer products. But these products also helped push the industry forward. I’ll never forget Jim telling me after the board made the decision to greenlight AP Mobile (following a significant debate), “Sometimes you just have to push the puck into the corner and see what happens.” Thanks, Jim, for helping AP and its members think creatively about the future.
 
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Dave Tomlin - I worked closely with Jim on something called SelectStocks and another thing called BusinessWatch. Those projects are best forgotten, but Jim’s leadership and the pleasure of his professional company were unforgettable, for all the reasons his other fans have given. Happy trails, Jim!

 
Having the fun of my life – with Australian aircraft museum
Carl Robinson - One of the great joys of my later retirement moving 100 k's down the coast from Sydney a couple years has been the nearby HARS (Historical Aircraft Restoration Society) Aviation Museum, surely one of the best in the world with over 50 older commercial and military aircraft, many still functioning, where I'm an active volunteer, especially cranking up its social media profile, including a new YouTube Channel.  
 
Always a stills photographer from my AP Saigon Days ('68-75), I've even switched over to shooting video -- one of those heavy SONY monsters -- and like a dog who's learned new tricks having the fun of my life -- and a sore shoulder or two.  
 
Among the Museum's operational aircraft are two notable Vietnam War-era veterans -- an ex-RAN (Royal Australian Navy) UH-1B helicopter, the iconic Huey, and a couple ex-RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) Canadian-built de Havilland DHC-4 Caribous, renowned for its short take-off & landing (STOL) capabilities. I've been up on both and for this past week's ANZAC Day, Australia's equivalent of Memorial Day, I was strapped into our Caribou 234 - who left with Australia's last Vietnam contingent in 1972 - for a thrilling run up the coast and a low-level three-aircraft run over spectacular Sydney Harbour with its iconic Bridge & Opera House and over marching veterans on the city streets below. Leading the show was a recently restored and flying RAN Grumman S-2G Tracker 844 which earlier in its life served on US aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin.  What a thrilling experience!
 
After the thrills & fun of shooting video always comes the hard -- and time-consuming -- part of the exercise: days of editing our ground and on-board footage into a story. (At least with stills today you don't need that AP Saigon darkroom developing film and doing radiophotos!)   In fact, we got so busy that I just plain forgot about yesterday's anniversary of my chopper flight out of Saigon and today's Fall of Saigon.  And just as well too. It always saddens me.
 
Many thanks, Ben Brown
 
Cecilia White - Thank you, Ben Brown. Forty years ago today, 5 May 1982, my life was immeasurably enriched when, as AP/Los Angeles COB, you hired me as bureau secretary (as the job was called then). So began my lifelong appreciation and pride of The Associated Press and, particularly, of the countless dedicated, talented people who have witnessed and recorded history for the past 176 years and who continue to "get it first, get it fast, get it right." I cannot imagine my life without my AP connections, so my warmest "thank you," Ben for 'adopting' me into the AP family 40 years ago. You are a good man. And thank you, Paul Stevens, for being the glue that keeps all of us together!
 
Curmudgeonly comments continue
 
Joe Frazier - I enjoyed Norm Abelson’ contribution this week to the curmudgeon exchange.
 
He mentioned a book I would love to see, a collection of typos, booboos and similar screw-up. He said he “loaned the book out,” usually a bad idea. It’s where treasured volumes go to die.   But unless I’m wrong (horrors!) he means lend, not loan. I don’t think loan is a verb.
 
I am not much of a curmudgeon. Mostly I just hunker down in the tiny town of Yachats on Oregon’ central and spectacular coast after nearly 38 years in the harness and watch.
 
It is a complex language rich in oddities which. Is among the reasons I love it, but it is rife with booby traps.
 
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Larry Thorson  - Put me on the list of retirees who reads the Times and Post with a mental blue pencil.
 
Failure of subject and verb to agree in number. Subject is "list" and verb should be the singular "read."
 
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Jeffrey Ulbrich - I'm also a member of the curmudgeon society. However, that has never prevented me from counting Eric Clapton's "Lay Down Sally" among my favorite songs.
 
The Library in the Laundry Room
 
Ann Levin - Thought you might enjoy this essay I wrote about the makeshift library that sprang up in the laundry room of our apartment building. I’m so grateful to the online literary magazine Potato Soup Journal for giving it a good home. If you like it, feel free to share it with other lit lovers in your networks—and most of all, keep reading and writing and buying books!
 
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For a long time, my favorite library was in the laundry room of my apartment building. It sprang up soon after my husband and I moved in, when someone left two cheap bookcases in the basement and a few cartons of books. Instead of putting them out with the trash, our super installed the shelves near the dryers with a cheery sign that said, “Help yourself and leave a few for your neighbors!”
 
At first, I didn’t pay attention. Then one day a boomer in the throes of downsizing dumped dozens of books by the likes of Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri and Jennifer Egan, writers I’d always meant to read but never had the time for. So, I scooped up an armful and went back upstairs, arranging them in our bookcases before my husband got home.
 
Around the same time there was a wave of apartment sales in the building. The original shareholders who’d bought their apartments for $25,000 when the building went co-op in the 1980s were cashing in for $1 million, enough to pay for a move to Florida. Judging by the books they abandoned, they’d been serious readers and world travelers.
 
I snapped up volumes of Sophocles, Suetonius, Stendhal, and Shakespeare and fat coffee table catalogs, including one from an Egon Schiele exhibit in Tel Aviv that was written in German, a language I didn’t speak. But I thought it needed a good home.
 
Stan said I’d never read them all and disapproved of my habit, until the day I came back with a vintage set of Analog magazines, which temporarily silenced him because he loves science fiction. He even agreed to help me buy more shelves.
 
Still, I knew I had a problem. I was finding excuses to go to the basement several times a day. As soon as we finished a carton of milk or container of hummus, I’d rush to the recycling area, then swing by the laundry room to see if anything new had shown up overnight.
 
Read more here.
 
On the passing of Ron Galella
Ron Galella (left) and former The Record of Hackensack, N.J., photographer Tom Franklin mug as if themselves caught by paparazzi during an interview at Galella's home.
 
 
(Editor's Note: Tuesday's Connecting included a New York Times story on the death at age 91 of Ron Galella, dubbed "the Godfather of the U.S. paparazzi culture." Tom Franklin, a former photographer at The Record of Hackensack, N.J., and known for his iconic Iwo Jima-like photo of firefighters raising an American flag on 9/11 atop the World Trade Center ruins, recalled visiting Galella at his home for a feature story. Franklin, now an associate professor in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University, shared his Facebook post with Connecting.)
 
Sorry to hear about the passing of Ron Galella today. He was the undisputed king of paparazzos, a legend. I had a blast photographing him one time at his house in Montvale (N.J.) with my BFF Virginia Rohan who was writing a profile. I went into it thinking he was going to be a first-class lowlife. I was wrong.
 
First of all, he lived in a McMansion in Jersey, I was expecting Lower East Side? But then he was disarmingly funny, charming, and impossible not to like. He showed us his considerable photo archive. Being an organizational freak myself, I was envious. He had stacks of Kodak boxes with negatives and prints meticulously labeled, like the old days before digital. And what was probably most surprising of all, he wasn’t ashamed of his line of work. He was proud, and considered himself a documentarian, capturing moments and expressions of his subjects. He was an artist. Thoughtful. And now looking back, he has an incredible record of the fast and loose era of the 60s & 70s. Studio 54. Take a look, you’ll be amazed.
 
We sat in his living room, his wife served coffee. He regaled us about hiding in trees staking out Jackie-O. Renting boats, hiring planes, and other shenanigans, all to get his shots. He reveled in the hunt as much as the photography. He often hired a second photog to shoot him photographing the celebrities in case he got whacked. Always the self-promoter. He playfully posed for photos with some of his famous celebrity images, poking fun at his notorious run-ins with the likes of Brando. We shot selfies hiding from the imaginary paparazzi. He was like a kid.
 
After the story ran, which included several of his famous images, he sent us a bill for like $10,000 for the usage. My editor Rich Gigli was livid. I called Ron about the bait-n-switch, and he laughed. “Sorry, but it never hurts to send a bill, ya never know." Later, we exchanged signed photos. His famous “Windblown Jackie” hangs in my office at Montclair. My Mom had a resemblance to Jackie when she was younger, it’s one of my faves. Most of my students have no idea, but whenever I see it, I laugh.
 
For years, Ron sent me his signature Christmas card; an 11x14 placard with a collage of photos, usually from some new book. He was always about self-promotion. I hung each one at my desk. I had a small collection going until one year the placard he sent was filled with photos of the Kennedy kids, all paparazzi shots of John-John and Caroline, taken before Jackie had a restraining order. After that, he couldn't go near them. That too hung on my desk, until I realized the new reporter a few desks over was Tatiana, Jackie O’s granddaughter. Awkward. I took it down.
 
RIP Ron, you were a true original.

(Shared by Mark Mittelstadt)
 
A fighter pilot, diplomat and friend passes from the scene
Brig. Gen. Reynolds exits a Chinese submarine he was invited to inspect at the Qingdao naval base in 1989.  He was part of embassy contingent welcoming first US naval port call to China since 1949. Photo by Neal Ulevich.
 
Neal Ulevich - A Washington Post obituary brings the sad news an old friend, US Air Force Brig. Gen. Jon Reynolds, has died. Fighter pilot, Vietnam War POW and diplomat, we met in Beijing in a way which revealed in moments his generous character.
 
On May 15, 1984, we entered the gatehouse to Beijing's Diaoyutai Guest House, a secure compound used to accommodate visiting heads of state and other VIPs. Jon was Air Force attaché, there to meet US Ambassador to the United Nations Jean Kirkpatrick, then visiting China. Apparently, Ms. Kirkpatrick was a high maintenance VIP. When I entered the gatehouse Jon saw me as a complication, perhaps a photo op no one bothered to tell him about.
 
"What are you doing here?"  Jon’s query bled frustration.
 
"I'm from AP, here to photograph the president of Ecuador,” I responded. "What way is that to greet someone you don't even know?" I added with considerable irritation.
 
"You're right. Let's be friends," he said. We shook hands. It turned out our wives knew each other as did our kids. The Beijing foreign community was tiny at the time.
 
And friends we were, in Beijing and afterward, when chance meetings permitted a reunion elsewhere.
 
Jon arrived in China as a colonel, one member of the US defense attaché team. Not long afterward Washington named him senior defense attaché and gave him a brigadier's star. He said then he never dreamed during his seven years as a POW at the infamous Hanoi Hilton and other North Vietnamese prisons he would be promoted to general at all, much less at a ceremony in Communist China.
Connecting wishes Happy Birthday
Welcome to Connecting
Stories of interest
 
Biden taps 1st Black woman, LGBT White House press secretary (AP)
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, right, listens as incoming press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Thursday, May 5, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
 
By ZEKE MILLER
 
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday named Karine Jean-Pierre to be the next White House press secretary, the first Black woman and openly LGBTQ person to serve in the role. Incumbent Jen Psaki is set to leave the post next week.
 
Jean-Pierre takes on the role as the White House faces an uphill battle to help Democrats hold onto the House and Senate in this fall’s midterm elections, and as the administration struggles to address Americans’ concerns about soaring inflation and the state of the economy. She also comes into the job as Biden faces a daunting array of foreign policy challenges, including the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s escalating nuclear testing program. Biden is set to visit South Korea and Japan later this month and Europe in June.
 
Biden is also bringing back longtime Democratic strategist Anita Dunn as his senior adviser. She had served in the Biden White House last year for several months after Biden was sworn into office.
 
Read more here.
 
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Virus Cases Grow After White House Correspondents Dinner (New York Times)
 
By Chris Cameron
 
WASHINGTON — On Saturday, the comedian Trevor Noah stood before a ballroom of 2,600 journalists, celebrities and political figures at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and asked: What are we doing here?
 
“Did none of you learn anything from the Gridiron Dinner? Nothing,” Mr. Noah said, referring to another elite Washington gathering in April, after which dozens of attendees tested positive for the coronavirus. “Do you read any of your own newspapers?”
 
By Wednesday, Mr. Noah’s chiding remarks at what he called “the nation’s most distinguished superspreader event” were beginning to appear prophetic as a growing number of attendees, including a string of journalists and Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, said they had tested positive for the virus.
 
Read more here. Shared by Dennis Conrad.
 
The Final Word


A moment of silence for Lenny Ignelzi
Bernie Wilson, AP sports writer since 1991, shared on Twitter this photo at Petco Park when the San Diego Padres held a moment of silence for retired AP photographer Lenny Ignelzi. The Padres were, as Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman said earlier this week, Lenny's "go-to team." Lenny died a week ago at the age of 74. He was San Diego AP photographer for 37 years. #RIP to a legend in our business. (Shared by Elliot Spagat.)
Today in History - May 6, 2022
By The Associated Press
Today is Friday, May 6, the 126th day of 2022. There are 239 days left in the year.
 
Today’s Highlight in History:
 
On May 6, 1937, the hydrogen-filled German airship Hindenburg caught fire and crashed while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey; 35 of the 97 people on board were killed along with a crewman on the ground.
 
On this date:
 
In 1882, President Chester Alan Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from the U.S. for 10 years (Arthur had opposed an earlier version with a 20-year ban).
 
In 1910, Britain’s Edwardian era ended with the death of King Edward VII; he was succeeded by George V.
 
In 1935, the Works Progress Administration began operating under an executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
 
In 1941, Josef Stalin assumed the Soviet premiership, replacing Vyacheslav (VEE’-cheh-slav) M. Molotov. Comedian Bob Hope did his first USO show before an audience of servicemen as he broadcast his radio program from March Field in Riverside, California.
 
In 1942, during World War II, some 15,000 American and Filipino troops on Corregidor island surrendered to Japanese forces.
 
In 1954, medical student Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, in 3:59.4.
 
In 1994, former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones filed suit against President Bill Clinton, alleging he’d sexually harassed her in 1991. (Jones reached a settlement with Clinton in November 1998.)
 
In 2004, President George W. Bush apologized for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, calling it “a stain on our country’s honor”; he rejected calls for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation.
 
In 2006, Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, died in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, at age 99.
 
In 2010, a computerized sell order triggered a “flash crash” on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrials to a loss of nearly 1,000 points in less than half an hour.
 
In 2013, kidnap-rape victims Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who went missing separately about a decade earlier while in their teens or early 20s, were rescued from a house just south of downtown Cleveland. (Their captor, Ariel Castro, hanged himself in prison in September 2013 at the beginning of a life sentence plus 1,000 years.)
 
In 2020, New York City began shutting down its subway system overnight to allow for additional cleaning and disinfecting of cars and stations amid the pandemic. President Donald Trump reversed course on plans to wind down his COVID-19 task force; he said the force would shift its focus toward rebooting the economy and developing a vaccine.
 
Ten years ago: Vice President Joe Biden told NBC’s “Meet the Press” he was “absolutely comfortable” with gay couples who marry getting the same civil rights and liberties as heterosexual couples. Socialist Francois Hollande (frahn-SWAH’ oh-LAWND’) defeated conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy (sahr-koh-ZEE’) to become France’s next president. Actor George Lindsey, “Goober” on “The Andy Griffith Show,” died in Nashville at age 83.
 
Five years ago: A Nigerian military official said 83 Chibok (chih-BAWK’) schoolgirls had been released more than three years after they were abducted from their boarding school by Boko Haram (BOH’-koh hah-RAHM’) extremists.
 
One year ago: Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a 48-page elections bill that Republicans said would guard against fraud and vote harvesting; Democrats and voting rights advocates said it was an attempt to make it harder for some people to vote. In an election-year surprise, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced that she would not seek a second term. The Los Angeles Angels cut 41-year-old superstar Albert Pujols. (Pujols would finish the season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, before returning to the St. Louis Cardinals in 2022.)
 
Today’s Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays is 91. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., is 88. Rock singer Bob Seger is 77. Singer Jimmie Dale Gilmore is 77. Gospel singer-comedian Lulu Roman is 76. Actor Alan Dale is 75. Actor Ben Masters is 75. Actor Richard Cox is 74. Actor Gregg Henry is 70. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is 69. TV personality Tom Bergeron is 67. Actor Roma Downey is 62. Rock singer John Flansburgh (They Might Be Giants) is 62. Actor Julianne Phillips is 62. Actor-director George Clooney is 61. Actor Clay O’Brien is 61. Rock singer-musician Tony Scalzo (Fastball) is 58. Actor Leslie Hope is 57. Actor Geneva Carr (TV: “Bull”) is 56. Rock musician Mark Bryan (Hootie and the Blowfish) is 55. Rock musician Chris Shiflett (Foo Fighters) is 51. Actor Stacey Oristano is 43. Model/TV personality Tiffany Coyne is 40. Actor Adrianne Palicki is 39. Actor Gabourey Sidibe (GA’-bah-ray SIH’-duh-bay) is 39. Actor-comedian Sasheer Zamata is 36. Rapper Meek Mill is 35. Houston Astros infielder Jose Altuve is 32. Actor-singer Naomi Scott is 29. Actor Noah Galvin is 28.
Got a story or photos to share?
Connecting is a daily newsletter published Monday through Friday that focuses on retired and former Associated Press employees, present-day employees, and news industry and journalism school colleagues. It began in 2013 and past issues can be found by clicking Connecting Archive in the masthead. Its author, Paul Stevens, retired from the AP in 2009 after a 36-year career as a newsman in Albany and St. Louis, correspondent in Wichita, chief of bureau in Albuquerque, Indianapolis and Kansas City, and Midwest vice president based in Kansas City.

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

Here are some suggestions:

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

- Second chapters - You finished a great career. Now tell us about your second (and third and fourth?) chapters of life.
 
- Spousal support - How your spouse helped in supporting your work during your AP career. 

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

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

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

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

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

- Most unusual place a story assignment took you.

Paul Stevens
Editor, Connecting newsletter
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