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With nearly 27 years with The Associated Press, including 21 years as an AP manager in four states, I have extensive news, news management and newspaper experience, more than many publishers and editors.
As chief of bureau at Denver for five years, I was responsible for all Associated Press operations in Colorado and Wyoming.
An AP chief of bureau is a newsperson AND a businessperson. My experience in journalism, perhaps unconventional, is thorough nevertheless.
For example, I routinely wrote, edited and filed news and broadcast copy; assigned and supervised coverage; selected and edited photos; budgeted up to 16 months in advance and authorized day-to-day and special spending; (our budgets were in the black for 98 straight months in West Virginia and for five straight years in Colorado/Wyoming); “sold” AP products through sustained sales campaigns and individual visits; met sales quotas and deadlines; recruited, hired, fired and promoted staff; handled human resource matters in a union shop; represented The AP at journalism and public events; moved or renovated three major bureaus; and generally managed several offices and dozens of employees, often scores of miles apart.
I worked daily with publishers, general managers, production managers, editors, editorial page editors, managing editors, city editors, sports editors, business editors, photo editors, photographers, reporters and clerks of all kinds. Along these lines, I helped solve a variety of newspaper needs, from routine and special daily news and sports copy, to photos, to special sections, to stocks listings, to you-name-it.
In Colorado and Wyoming alone, where I was the primary AP contact for 40-plus newspapers, that meant regular, first-name contact with hundreds of newspaper people on thousands of suggestions, requests, problems and solutions for newspapers.
That was often day and night, weekends, holidays and vacations included! And deadlines? AP deadlines are all the time, of course.
In short, I performed the work of the busiest of publishers and editors.
I have excellent communications skills inside and outside of the shop. I am an excellent editor, and often worked on copy for national and international movement. Also, I met regularly with our newspaper members, journalism students, and community and business leaders.
I have proven ability to direct, coach and mentor staff to higher performance. I am proud many of my “students” are now working for The AP as reporters in New York, Atlantic City, Cape Canaveral, Moscow, Bangkok, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Honolulu and Hanoi, among other places. Others followed me as AP managers in New York, Columbus, Phoenix and Little Rock. Still others are senior editors or executives for Newsweek, CNN, and Gannett News Service.
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I understand “local” news and “community journalism.” I have worked at four weeklies and dailies.
I understand, and embrace, the Readership Institute’s findings. I agree a newspaper “should position itself as an information broker, a trusted source of information across all media.”
"Local" news is exactly what we did at The AP does every day, and what I have done every day in my 38 years in journalism starting as a teen-ager.
Every AP story big or small, including JonBenet Ramsey and Columbine High School, is really a local story. AP reporters and editors work with the same news "sources" as newspaper reporters.
In addition, as publisher or editor, I would ask readers to join me for coffee at a downtown café (which advertises, of course) every, say, Friday morning. We would talk about them, their ideas, their newspaper, and the news. What could be more “local” than that? What better way to stay in touch with readers and future readers?
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