The last APME News

APME NEWS

From the Editor

Andrew Oppmann

T

ake a bow, APME News. You’ve been a faithful chronicler of the many wonderful accomplishments and happenings of the Associated Press Media Editors for decades. But, with the debut of the new News Leaders Association, we say farewell to our noble periodical.

Being a volunteer organization, we haven’t been diligent in tracking the volume and edition numbers of the magazines throughout the years, as responsibility for the publication typically rotated from editor to editor on the Board of Directors. But this edition, whatever its number, is the last one to bear the proud banner.

I served my first stint as editor in my last two years as a board member (2008-09), but made the mistake in 2011 of calling then-President Bob Heisse with suggestions about the magazine.

He said, in essence, “Since you’ve got all these great ideas, why don’t you come back as

Andrew Oppmann editor?” So, my big (left) and Steve mouth bought me Massie, circa 2010) eight more years as editor, as well as the distinction of being the very last to hold the job.

There are too many friends and colleagues to acknowledge and not enough space here to list them all. I joined APME at the encouragement of my old boss, E.J. Mitchell; got hip-deep in it because of Karen

Magnuson as her 2007 conference chair; and stuck with it for so long because of Laura Sellers, Jon Broadbooks, Alan English and Bill Church.

Autumn Phillips was the lone volunteer staff writer of APME News and we often built the magazine around her great cover stories.

She’s the best.

And, in closing, my deepest thanks to Steve Massie, who designed APME News during both my stints as editor. We worked together at Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers during the first decade of the 21st Century, then life took us in different directions.

This magazine brought us back together every few months, doing the same things we did during the good old days at The Post-Crescent, cracking jokes and cranking out pages. He made miracles happen.

APME lives on in NLA and, soon I hope, the new organization will have a new platform to deliver its news to its members.

Onward! n

inside SEPT. 2019

3 4 6 14 18 22 24 28 29 30 33

6

14

President's Corner: Changing media landscape fuels the need to evolve Ken Paulson: Applauding the launch of the News Leaders Association Rich History: When APME gathered, celebrities and politicians were there Meet the Regents: Special group has shown support since 1971 The APME Archives: Wisconsin is home to mass communications mecca Sally Buzbee: AP and APME have navigated the course together NLA winners: New organization continues rich heritage of APME, ASNE AP winners: 2019 APME awards for AP staffers Members Showcase: AP's monthly photo contest winners NewsTrain: 16 years and rolling on, regional workshops serve journalists AP Stylebook Minute: Birth of AP Stylebook took cooperation

EDITOR

Andrew Oppmann

Adjunct Professor of Journalism, Middle Tennessee State University Andrew.Oppmann@mtsu.edu

DESIGNER

Steve Massie

smassie@crain.com

APME News is the quarterly magazine of the Associated Press Media Editors, a professional, nonprofit organization founded in 1933 in French Lick, Indiana. Its members include senior editors and leaders from news operations in the United States and Canada who are affiliated with The Associated Press, including more than 1,400 newspapers and online sites and about 2,000 broadcast outlets. The group also includes college journalism educators and college student media editors. APME works with AP to support and recognize journalism excellence and the First Amendment. To learm more about APME’s programs and activities, vist apme.com.

2 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

APME NEWS

The President’s Corner

Angie Muhs

Merger defines tenure

Changing media landscape fuels the need to evolve

J

ournalism is a profession in which we’re wired to do, do, do ----- juggling gazillions of competing tasks and priorities on tight deadlines.

It’s easy to get caught up in the fast-paced cycle of “now,” and sometimes hard to force oneself to step back, reflect and focus energy on strategically planning for the future.

Yet that has been the defining focus of the year of my presidency, the final year of APME’s existence, as we work with the American Society of News Editors to merge our organizations into the new News Leaders Association.

As members of both boards have learned, there are a lot of nuts and bolts issues to be ironed out as we work to merge two long-standing nonprofits. We’ve tried, though, to stay firmly focused on the road ahead for our new organization.

All along the process of pursuing a merger last year, APME board members were adamant that we embrace and retain some of our organization’s key values: training and nurturing journalists in the field, particularly through our low-cost and accessible News Train program; pushing for a diversity in our newsroom that makes our profession stronger in how we cover local communities; and advocating for media literacy and press freedoms, among others.

(And as befitting a group that was founded in a bar in French Lick, Indiana, it’s always been important to us to have a little fun and camaraderie, too.) The merger moved forward precisely because our ASNE colleagues share those time-honored values.

At the same time, our two groups are merging because we know the media landscape is changing and the path forward for journalism continues to evolve. We’ve worked with outside experts to tackle the tough questions: What tools do editors need to succeed and thrive ----- not just survive ----- in this changing landscape?

Fellow APME members have shared in some of my greatest journalism joys, and been stalwarts through the toughest times, too.

Former president Laura Sellers-Earl swept me along into a group at my first convention, where I knew no one. I have also benefited from the wisdom and humor of past presidents like Alan Miller, Bill Church and Jim Simon. There are too many APME board members, past and present, to thank individually for their lively minds, their capacity to debate, their willingness to take on volunteer work when their jobs are already demanding.

I’ve enjoyed the last year working with ASNE President Nancy Barnes, and am thrilled to see APME Vice President Michael Days preparing to become the first president of NLA. Editors today have a demanding, sometimes thankless, job with pressures that the guys in that bar in French Lick (and yes, they were all guys back then) never could have imagined.

APME has been an organization that I hope has offered editors

First NLA chief Days sets new path for fledgling organization The September convention will mark the beginning of a new era: the completion of the merger between the Associated Press Media Editors and the American Society of News Editors, and the emergence of the News Leaders Association as a key organization advocating for the profession of journalism.

For the past year, NLA has begun to set its path, with an initial board composed of the executive officers of both APME and ASNE. The vision and mission: NLA will continue to advocate for strong leadership, a diverse and inclusive workforce and defend against challenges to the First Amendment. The group intends to serve as a leader of, and an advocate and supporter of a free press.

NLA also will nurture news leaders and develop rising generations of journalists from diverse backgrounds.

While details are still being finalized on dues structures, NLA welcomes membership from editors at all levels, journalism educators, rising-career journalists and students. Membership is open to leaders at all levels in newsrooms and on all types of journalism platforms.

Michael Days, vice president for diversity and inclusion at the Philadelphia Inquirer, will serve as NLA president for 2019-20.

Other officers include vice president George Stanley, editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; secretary Manny Garcia of USA Today; and treasurer Alison Gerber, editor of the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

“This is much more than the merging of two storied organizations,” Days said.

“It’s a new beginning, a chance to reset the clock for a media ecosystem with new opportunities and challenges. We no longer want to be an organization that is, for editors, we need to be a group that nourishes Days and cultivates leaders of every stripe.” n resources and a refuge. I look forward to watching NLA do the same as our generation of editors ----- and the ones to come ----- work to tell our country’s story. n

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

3

APME NEWS

Ken Paulson

Welcome, new leaders

Free Speech Center launch in synch with NLA birth

I

applaud the launch of the News Leaders Association, a new and vibrant force for good in American journalism. Still, I’m going to miss ASNE and APME. I was privileged to serve as president of ASNE in 2012 and have been a member for decades. It was always a dignified and serious organization. APME, on the other hand, delivered the joy. No matter how unusual my proposal to promote the First Amendment, APME was always up for it. That’s how we ended up with “Elvis and the First Amendment,” high atop the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. And that’s why we reunited the cast of Lou Grant for an entertaining evening in Baltimore. Ed Asner capped off the evening by leading the conga line at the Hard Rock Café.

Different organizations with different styles. But I know firsthand that what was most important was what they shared: a commitment to newsroom ethics and excellence, diversity and a passion for the First Amendment.

As much as the First Amendment has been at the core of both organizations’ respective missions, the News Leaders Association must not only continue the work, but also expand and amplify it.

I’ve worked in First Amendment law and advocacy since 1997 and there have always been disappointing public perceptions of the five freedoms of the First Amendment. But we’ve never seen anything like what we face today.

The president of the United States decries quality journalism as “fake news” and calls reporters ugly names.

We’re so polarized that free speech is exercised in a vacuum. When did we stop listening to each other?

People of non-Christian faiths are viewed with suspicion and fear, leading to oppression and discrimination.

The good news – and there isn’t much these days – is that America’s news leaders remain in the very best position to make the case for freedom of speech, press, and religion, and the rights of petition and assembly.

That’s why I’m pleased to report that the News Leaders Association is not the only new organization emerged this fall. The Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University is being launched as well, in perfect synch with the foundational beliefs of both APNE and ASNE. The new non-partisan center, based on our campus in Murfreesboro, TN, will focus on these major initiatives: n Building understanding of the First Amendment on America’s campuses. The best path to a resurgence of respect for these core freedoms is through engaging the next generation of citizens. We’ll do that by supporting campus programming, developing educational events and resources and marketing the First Amendment to young people via our “1 for All” campaign. n Supporting and engaging in research about the shift in public perception of journalism, with an eye toward identifying fresh remedies.

4 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

“We’re so polarized that free speech is exercised in a vacuum. When did we stop listening to each other?”

n Creating content that illuminates the First Amendment for all Americans.

When the U.S. Constitution was first proposed, it initially fell short of ratification because the public wanted protections against the powerful central government. When those protections were promised in a proposed Bill of Rights, Americans embraced the Constitution, understanding that the new guarantee of a free press would help preserve all of our liberties.

That was true in 1789 and is just as true today. Throughout our nation’s history, courageous news leaders have fought for equality and justice, from abolition to women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement. Much of that reporting was unpopular at the time, focusing on discrimination and government abuse. But a free press has always persevered, living up to that mission handed to them by the first generation of Americans.

My heartfelt congratulations to the News Leaders Association.

Now lead. n

APME NEWS

When APME gathered, celebrities and politicians were in attendance, but the stars of the show were newspapermen

A RICH HISTORY

By Jerry Schwartz

T

The Associated Press

he menu at Los Angeles’ Biltmore Hotel on that night in November 1946 was splendid ----- crab legs and prawns, Lobster Thermidor with Potatoes Parisiennes, cakes and petit fours. But it was the guest list that was truly spectacular: John Wayne. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Henry Fonda, Kirk Douglas, Ida Lupino, Paul Muni, Johnny Weissmuller, Loretta Young, Edward G. Robinson, Elizabeth Taylor and scores of other luminaries of Hollywood’s golden age.

And the entertainment! Greer Garson opened the show; Jack Benny and Jimmy Durante, Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy provided the laughs. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and the Sons of the Pioneers brought their cowboy stylings to the glittering stage. And the far-future president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, introduced Judy Garland, who brought down the house with her rendition of “I Got the Sun in the Morning.”

But the guests of honor, scattered at tables throughout the cavernous Biltmore Bowl, were not fodder for fan magazines.

They were newspapermen ----- members of an organization that had not even existed at the start of the previous decade, and in fact would not even be incorporated permanently until 1948.

“Movie town put on its best manners and gave the Associated Press Managing Editors Association what old-timers reckoned was the biggest party in Hollywood’s history,” wrote Bob Thomas, then at the start of an AP career covering Hollywood that would stretch into the next millennium There, at table 74, was W. C. Stouffer, managing editor of the Roanoke, Virginia, World-News, and a charter member of APME

6 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

Bob Hope entertains AP Managing Editors annual dinner at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. AP PHOTO

who would recall the desire of its founders to “help newspapers, ourselves and The Associated Press by a better understanding of the aims of all.”

Norman Isaacs sat at table 102. Then managing editor of the St. Louis Star-Times, he would lead APME in 1953 and boast of the influence it had attained: “Our work is studied in colleges and schools; our counsel is sought; our assistance in worthwhile projects considered essential.”

The dapper man at table 23 ----- seated with his wife and former secretary Sarah Gibbs, Judy Garland and Vincente Minelli, and Gregory and Greta Peck ----- surely had occasion that evening to mull the distance he had traveled from his beginnings in the small town of Columbus, Indiana.

Kent Cooper ----- KC, as he was commonly

known ----- was nearing the close of an extraordinary career as the AP’s general manager. In the course of two decades, he had remade the cooperative into a truly global news organization.

Cooper was supportive of APME from the very start, though in its early days it offered a megaphone to some of AP’s disgruntled members. To Cooper, APME was a guide star for the AP and the industry: “This is an unprecedented endeavor,” he would write in 1948, “one that I am personally convinced contains the essence of new hope and inspiration for American journalism.”

It was that endeavor that the film industry gathered to salute. And it was that endeavor that would sustain through the years, as the news industry rode a boom and then >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

endured a bust that tested the resourcefulness of every editor and every organization.

Through it all, APME has been a voice for freedom of information and ethical standards, a partner to The Associated Press, a cheerleader for good journalism, a nexus for shop talk, a laboratory for innovation ----- and a place where the people who put out the nation’s newspapers could gather to down a drink or two and wonder at the never-ending chaos of their world.

No more.

On that foggy night in ’46, Jack Benny promised his audience one thing: There would be no jokes confusing the AP with the A&P. More than 72 years later, the AP is still here. But the A&P has gone to the graveyard of great American brands, and APME is about to follow. lll

APME’s origins were less grandiose than those of Sigma Delta Chi, which began as an honorary society at DePauw University in 1909, or the American Society of Newspaper Editors, launched in 1922 in response to two articles critical of newspapers that appeared in The Atlantic Monthly.

As the story is often told, APME was conjured over drinks.

For years, editors would attend the

Newly elected directors of the Associated Press Managing Editors pose for a group photo at their annual meeting in Boston, Mass., Nov. 14, 1952. AP PHOTO/DAN GOSHTIGIAN

coinciding annual meetings of the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the AP and would go away dissatisfied. Most of the discussion was about the business of newspapers. There was little time for talk of news.

In 1931, Roy Roberts, managing editor of The Kansas City Star, went to a hotel bar with Oliver Owen Kuhn, managing editor of The Washington Star. As Roberts remembered it, “I said why in the world didn’t the managing editors have an informal conference with AP AP photographer Eddie Adams, right, is shown receiving a framed document from John C. Quinn of Gannett Newspapers during the APME convention in Oklahoma City.

Date unknown.

AP PHOTO

heads and get a lot of gripes out of their systems on the file, copy, etc., while we were there.”

Kent Cooper was easily persuaded, and called a meeting of AP editors and newspaper managing editors for the next year.

According to Roberts, 20 or 30 editors attended. “They began to shoot questions at the AP crowd, mostly complaints. Everyone got a lot of things off his chest. The AP bunch explained a lot of things.

“It was generally felt that it had been a worthwhile meeting,” he said, though “things hadn’t been very pleasant” for the AP’s representatives.

Still, when Kuhn pressed to make the meeting a permanent affair, the AP agreed ----- perhaps because of the support of his publisher, Frank Noyes, who had been president of AP since 1900.

According to one participant, it was Cooper’s idea to set the first formal conference at the grand hotel at French Lick, Indiana, seemingly for fear that editors might be distracted by more a cosmopolitan setting.

“There were no attractions there and, next to a mausoleum at midnight, it was about the quietest place they could conceive at that time of year,” recalled Malcolm Bingay, editorial director of the Detroit Free Press.

Sixty-one editors, about 30 AP bureau chiefs and a contingent of AP executives >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

7

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

from New York attended what turned out to be a hard-working conference. Sessions ran from morning until 11 p.m. Long position papers were punctuated by editors’ gripes, to which the AP guys responded.

The editors told AP they wanted the news service to be less choosy about the pictures it sent ----- send them all, they said, and let us pick among them. Some editors wanted more gossipy stories from Washington; a committee disagreed, prizing AP’s “reputation for strict accuracy in all matters.”

The gathering was a resounding success.

“To have attended this meeting,” wrote Bingay, “was to be inspired afresh, to attain rebirth of confidence in the power and glory of a free and untrammeled American press serving a free and independent American people.”

The first meeting set the template: Managing editors met and criticized, AP responded. Then, in 1946, Cooper proposed a more structured system. APME committees would review the AP report throughout the year and submit findings which would be published with the AP’s response. Each committee would have its own focus: Business, Domestic News, Sports, Foreign, Newsphotos, Membership Participation, Washington, Campaign News and Newsfeatures.

At first dozens, then scores and finally hundreds of editors worked on what were called Continuing Studies. For more than 50 years, they were published in Red Books ----yearly publications that included reports from the annual conventions. In 1948, the first Red Book received Sigma Delta Chi’s Distinguished Service Award for research in journalism.

They’re remarkable documents ----- tough criticisms that mirror the enthusiasms of their times.

In the 1955 Red Book, for example, the editors found fault with the AP’s coverage of the launch of the first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus: “It received hardly more mention on the AP’s trunk wire than a Grade B Hollywood brawl.” They criticized, in general, the AP’s “failure to grasp immediately the historic march of events, to plan boldly and report completely.”

They were no less unstinting in their

8 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

Seymour Hersh, left, New York Times investigative reporter whose stories about CIA activities sparked current Congressional investigations, seems to be sharing a secret with CIA director William Colby, in Williamsburg, Va., 1975. They were panelists at a meeting of Associated Press Managing Editors in convention here. AP PHOTO

assessment of some of their newspapers.

“Most members take their responsibilities seriously. Some do not. Some realize their responsibilities but are careless, lazy or inconsiderate.”

Not all the criticisms were lofty. Consider this appeal to Wes Gallagher, then the editor of AP Newsfeatures, later AP’s president and general manager.

“On the whole, the humor content of APN stories is quite close to zero,” the editors wrote. “Gallagher, please ask somebody to be funny.”

The committees would change through the years. New concerns would spawn new committees. Some would focus on coverage of specific stories, like Vietnam or Watergate.

More and more often, they aimed their investigations beyond the AP, to the industry’s credibility and diversity.

Lou Boccardi had a long history with APME, starting 1969 when he became the AP’s managing editor and ending in 2003 with his retirement as president and general manager.

“I don’t want to portray this as a society of scholars,” Boccardi said, but APME’s editors took their responsibilities seriously, and their reports ----- often delivered in real time ----- were valuable. APME was always there to test out ideas.

When Boccardi heard that APME was considering a merger with ASNE in 2000, he grew concerned. He was convinced that AP needed APME, and so did its members. So he invested in the organization, bringing Mark Mittelstadt, the AP‘s New Jersey bureau chief, up to New York and tasking him with the care and feeding of APME. He would become the

organization’s first executive director.

“APME was for me always like having our own ombudsman or public editor,” Boccardi said. “But instead of it being one person in one place it was editors in hundreds of newsrooms across the country.” lll

For most of its history, APME did not collect dues. If you were a managing editor and your newspaper was an AP member, you could join.

Bob Haiman was named managing editor of the St. Petersburg Times the day he turned 30, joined APME (“It was the thing to do”), and attended his first convention in 1966, in San Diego.

“The conventions were huge,” he recalled.

These were great social occasions of bonhomie; there were diversions, like the satirical musicals written and directed by Richard Smyser of The Oak Ridger of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

“The guy from Keokuk, Iowa, thought it was a big deal to rub elbows with the editor of the Miami Herald or the Louisville Courier-Journal,” recalled Haiman, who became APME president in 1982. “For me, it was a big deal to rub elbows with the guys from The New York Times and Washington Post.”

Sometimes, though, the elbows were sharp. The 1950 convention featured a Red Scare controversy, after Charles A. Hazen of The Shreveport, Louisiana, Times filed a dissent to a committee report and claimed that the AP displayed a left-wing bias against Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his claims of Communist infiltration in the government. >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

The tempest that followed was unique in the organization’s history.

Robert Early of The Indianapolis Star thought the APME board was trying to “sidetrack this thing.” He wanted a new committee to investigate the allegation, warning, “This is more serious than the atom bomb.”

Norman Isaacs was incensed. “We don’t dare set up a committee to stand over the AP men’s shoulders like an FBI. This would kill the AP. If this organization passed a motion like this, I wouldn’t want to be a part of this organization.”

The debate dominated the convention. In the end, the member who seconded Early’s motion withdrew his support, and it died for lack of anyone else who was willing to second it.

Other disputes did not rise to that level. A panel on the Warren Report on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, featuring conspiracy theorist Mark Lane, roiled tempers. In 1961, a discussion over whether APME should agree that television is a “mass communications medium like newspapers, and ought to be regarded as a potential daily news competitor” almost came to blows.

Some speakers sparked controversy; some made news, and even history. In 1973, a Watergate-beleaguered President Richard M. Nixon spoke to the convention in Orlando. At a news conference, Nixon’s rambling response to a question from Smyser came to an astonishing conclusion.

“People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook,” said the man who would become, within nine months, the only president to resign his office. “Well, I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got.”

Nixon was no friend of the press, but before this group of 400 editors, he did not criticize its work. In fact, he said he might be open to a federal law that protected reporters and news organizations from prosecution if they did not reveal confidential sources.

Other speakers were less reserved. In 1967, Eddie Stanky, manager of the Chicago White Sox, ripped a new breed of younger sportswriters: “They come on in, five or six negative questions, and I detest negative thinking, I detest a negative way of living. So consequently, I give a very poor answer to a

Above: U.S. President Richard Nixon, right bottom, is seen during an answer-question session with APME members during the group’s annual meeting at Disney World on Nov. 17, 1973. AP PHOTO At left: Nixon telling the group in Orlando “I am not a crook.”

AP PHOTO

called the editor to complain, and was told the reporter said the interview was “all Neil’s idea. As confirmed by my son’s headmaster, the reporter initiated the request.”

(Young Neil Gorsuch would eventually join the U.S. Supreme Court.) lll

negative question by what I call a new breed writer.”

In 1973, sportscaster Howard Cosell told it like it was ----- or at least, the way he thought it was. Journalists too often idealized athletes. Newspapers wasted time and money reporting on games “already seen on television by millions.”

“You’ve got to look at your own houses,” Cosell said. “Examine how many newspapers in this country today still allow their writers to travel, eat and live at team expense, and I can name immediately a paper in Boston, a paper in New York.”

Anne McGill Burford, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, complained bitterly in 1983 about what she said was the press’ intrusions and distortions. “You are by your own action systematically destroying the faith of the American people in the credibility of news as a source of reliable information.”

Burford told the story of how a reporter went to the boarding school of her 15-yearold son Neil and asked to interview him. She

At the close of the 1970s, APME conducted a survey of its membership. It found that the typical editor was a white male, married less than 20 years, had two kids, was between 36 and 55 years old, and a college graduate.

He was the managing editor of an afternoon newspaper and was paid between $25,000 and $50,000 annually ($87,000 to $174,000 in 2019 dollars).

The women who responded worked longer hours, were paid less and were less likely to be married. And there were vanishingly few of them: Of 309 editors who replied, only 15 ----- 4.6 percent ----- were women.

For much of its history, APME had a woman problem. And the problem was twofold: There were far too few women, and men were never quite sure of what to do with the women who read their newspapers.

Well into the 1970s, photographs from APME conventions depicted a bunch of white guys, often with their wives. And many APME members embraced the sexism that was all too prevalent at the time.

As late as 1969, APME issued a guidelines >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

9

APME NEWS

pamphlet that included such suggestions for women in the newsroom, like, “Learn to understand the ways and wishes of a man. If he sees red when you wear red, don’t.” And, “Do your best to do everything the way your male boss wants it done.”

The 1955 convention featured two editors conducting a “humorous” discussion about whether women belonged in the newsroom.

“Somewhat to my horror, I found just the other day that there were four women compositors at work in our composing rooms ----- not one, but four. A whole nest of ‘em,” said Charles Henry Hamilton of the Richmond News Leader.

“I said `horror,’ all right, because I have some firm convictions about women’s place in newspaper work. Maybe they have a place as women’s page writers; maybe they have a place in the composing room ... but when it comes to writing news stories, in the news room, I think women have another place. It’s in the home.”

J.Q. Mahaffey of the Texarkana Gazette and Daily News said he was all in favor of giving women the run of the newsroom, and pitting them against each other: “Until you’ve seen one green-eyed babe going against another green-eyed babe, you ain’t never seen no competition.”

These were not unpopular sentiments.

The AP offered recordings of the talks for $3 a piece ----- “while they last.”

Just the year before, the opposing point of view had been heard, loud and clear. Mary Margaret McBride was a reporter and popular radio host of the day, and was a columnist for AP Newsfeatures in the mid-1950s. She arrived at the 1954 conference in Tampa, Florida, her shoulders wrapped in a mink stole and an orchid pinned to her bosom, and she let the boys have it.

Woman in the newsroom? “I’d have more of them and I’d pay them more money, and I’d send them out on every kind of story ...,” she said. “I think most reporters are bearcats on the job, men or women. Good ones are.”

Her main point was that women’s pages were relics that should be discarded. “I honestly think that you treat women as a kind of second-class citizens in your newspapers. That old women’s page! Women’s

10 SEPTEMBER 2019

news! Experts on women! What does it all mean? Aren’t women the same as men, really? Must they have a page?”

Her male audience argued: Advertisers want women’s pages. (Don’t they realize, she asked, that setting pages aside for women “puts the men off of them?”) A women’s section is as justified as the sports pages. (“Women read sports pages,” she insisted.)

Women’s clubs want publicity. (“Kiwanians don’t want publicity?”)

In 1956, APME set up a committee to study women’s pages. Three of the four members were women, as was the leader.

And what they found was that McBride was right ----- mostly.

“

APME NEWS

“Somewhat to my horror, I found just the other day that there were four women compositors at work in our composing rooms ----- not one, but four.

A whole nest of ‘em.”

“

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

CHARLES HENRY HAMILTON of the Richmond News Leader

Though women’s readership of sports was 25% less then men’s, women read serious news as much as men, read the editorials and columnists, did not confine themselves to typical women’s page fare and were “vitally concerned with financial news, because women shareholders of stocks outnumber men.”

This was not the last word. APME would return to the subject again and again over the decades. By 1973, many women’s sections had been displaced by more gender-neutral lifestyle sections.

While applauded by many, the changes were criticized by Dorothy Jurney, a Philadelphia Inquirer assistant managing editor who argued women needed more coverage, not less, though that coverage should be better calibrated for the age of liberation: “Are we really meeting the interests of these newly awakened readers? I

happen to believe that many of our lifestyle sections do not adequately approach their needs. They are too restricted.”

The number of female members creeped up. The sexism quotient declined. Jurney became the first female member of the APME board, in 1973. In the 1980s, one APME panel took on newspapers’ failure to nurture female top executives, and another was able to discuss the issue of sexual relationships in the newsroom without snickering.

And in 1992, Sue Reisinger, managing editor of the Broward edition of The Miami Herald, presided over the APME convention in Honolulu ----- the first woman ever to chair the organization.

That was the good news. The bad news: An APME report found that one in three female journalists had been sexually harassed in the newsroom. lll

A 1981 convention speaker, Les Payne of Newsday, warned that a news industry that lacked diversity was failing to do its job: “You can’t possibly fulfill the people’s right to know without appreciably building up the number of blacks on your staff.”

APME, too, would remain predominately white; it would be 1995 before it had a black president, Bob McGruder of the Detroit Free Press.

But beginning in the late 1960s, committees focused on the effects of homogenous newsrooms. And starting in 1999, it joined with ASNE to sponsor Time Out for Diversity and Accuracy, an annual, week-long effort to get newspapers to come to grips with their racial shortcomings.

This was an essential part of APME’s DNA ----- an insistence that if intelligent and good people studied an industry issue hard enough and talk about it long enough, solutions could be found.

It didn’t always work. After a two-year effort to assemble an industry ethics code, APME merely circulated the document as a starting point for discussions; it was just too hard to get agreement on a single policy that worked for everybody.

When the integrity of the news media came under attack, a continuing study committee on credibility was convened.

With the help of APME, scores of newspa>> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

pers held community roundtables in the early 2000s to discuss the way they covered everything from race to snowmobiles in Yellowstone Park.

There were other ways to propel industry improvement. APME believed awards were a simple way to encourage good work. There were the citations to members who helped with AP coverage; the annual awards to AP staffers, beginning in 1964; and public service and freedom of information awards to newspapers.

The first FOI award, in 1971, went to The New York Times for its reporting on the Pentagon Papers ----- though a poll taken at that convention found that a quarter of the editors said the papers should not have been published.

That difference of opinion notwithstanding, APME had a long history of support for the right of its newspapers ----- and their readers ----- to information from their government. Speaking before the 1945 convention, Kent Cooper titled his talk “The People’s Right to Know,” and the phrase caught on.

APME officials testified before legislatures, spoke out, organized. “With the nation’s free press under ever increasing attack from all quarters, the committee had no difficulty keeping busy,” the FOI committee reported in 1971. “The committee symbol is the hot foot, born of stamping out brush fires.”

Originally the Committee on Censorship, it was established in 1950 under James Russell Wiggins, editor of the Washington Post. The next year, APME found itself in a staredown with the president of the United States.

On Sept. 24, 1951, Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 10290, which extended the use of military censorship categories ----- top secret, secret, classified and confidential ----- to civilian agencies. Truman said the information had to be protected to prevent it from landing in Communist hands.

Conveniently, APME was meeting at the time in San Francisco. A resolution passed, denouncing the order as “a dangerous instrument of news suppression” which was too vague and lacked an appeals process. A

Actor Ed Asner, left, counts off the three issues that couldn’t be discussed on his “Lou Grant” television show (busing, gun control and abortion) as Robert Walden, center, and Ken Paulson, of the First Amendment Center, listen during a 25th anniversary observance of the newspaper drama at the APME conference in Baltimore in 2002. AP PHOTO/JACQUELINE ROGGENBRODT

delegation from APME met with the president for 40 minutes on Oct. 17; APME President Herbert F. Corn of the Washington Star said the discussion was pleasant, but Truman insisted the order was a good one and he had no intention of changing it.

Truman would ask APME to suggest changes to the order; the executive committee refused, refusing to become an ally to censorship. Truman, displeased, accused APME of “carping” instead of cooperating.

So the rules remained in force until the Eisenhower administration reduced their scope.

“I doubt that any administration ever will wholly abandon the system of classifying security matters, in the present state of the world,” Wiggins said. And seven decades later, after countless FOI tussles, it’s pretty clear that he was right. lll

The trajectory of American journalism over the past nine decades is apparent to anyone reading the Red Books and APME News.

From the ‘30s through the ‘70s, the industry was flush, and its challenge was how to do things better ----- how to write better, how to present the news better, how to come to grips with a changing world.

Television, with its growing influence, was the darkest cloud on the horizon.

Gradually, doubts set in. What will be the consequences of computers and automation? A panel at the 1982 convention asked another question: “PMs Papers: Is there a future?” Suddenly, 24-hour cable news was a competitor.

More recently, there was struggle and, sometimes, despair. In 1997, a panel discussed, “Circulation: How to Stop the Hem-

orrhage.” An APME survey in 2009 found that 71 percent of editors said that cutbacks had “somewhat affected” or “greatly affected” their ability to inform readers.

APME tried to help.

As far back as 1971, APME had conducted seminars on new technologies. Then it created NewsTrain, a traveling road show of low-cost, digital training. Sixteen years later, more than 7,500 journalists have trained at 92 sites around the country.

APME worked with the AP to provide unique local content -- packages of stories on earmarks, aging America and broken state budgets.

And when journalists were dealing with a catastrophe ----- when they were struggling with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina ----- APME gave $18,000 to affected newsrooms, to be spent as they saw fit. A chunk of that money came from the APME Foundation.

The annual meetings continued, and offered nuts-and-bolts strategies to editors who were being forced to do more with less.

“Whatever we could do to be part of whatever they need,” said Bob Heisse, executive editor of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, News, and APME president in 2012.

Heisse is proud that his convention, in Nashville, sold out all 225 spots. But he recognizes that was a far cry from the kind of participation that was common years ago, when more newspapers felt they could afford to send their managing editors to annual meetings. In 1988, more than 650 took part, and the decades since have seen an inexorable slide. (ASNE has had a similar decline, and even canceled its 2009 convention in Chicago for lack of interest.) >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

11

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

APME opened up. In 2011, the group retained its initials but changed its name to Associated Press Media Editors, inviting broadcast executives, college journalism educators and students to join. Three years later, it held its first joint convention with ASNE. The logic of an ASNE merger was impossible to deny.

“APME couldn’t have continued on its own,” said Jim Simon, the organization’s penultimate president.

But Simon prefers to concentrate on the future. “I think one of the big challenges for APME and ASNE in this whole process is to make ourselves relevant to a wider array of journalists,” he said.

“The titles are no longer the thing. The types of jobs are no longer the thing. The definition of a leader in a newsroom has changed remarkably. Managing editor,

Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., addresses the 2007 annual APME meeting in Washington. She told the APME she will bring to a vote this year a bill to shield reporters from being forced to reveal their sources in federal court.

AP PHOTO/DENNIS COOK

executive editor ----- in a lot of newsrooms, these titles don’t even exist anymore.”

Simon is a man of both the past and future. He is managing editor of Honolulu Civil Beat ----- a nonprofit news site that is unlike anything editors who groused in a hotel bar in the depths of the Depression might have imagined.

But he also spent more than 30 years as a reporter and editor for The Seattle Times.

And he has no doubt that much of what APME has done for the past 85 years will find new expression in the News Leaders Association.

There will be more “really pragmatic training like NewsTrain,” brought directly to the people who need it. More efforts to develop new leadership for the industry, and to improve its diversity. More opportunities for editors of all media, new and old, to gather and network and grouse.

And always, he said, there will be a commitment to a free press.

“Those values,” he insisted, “will endure.” n

lllll

APME TIMELINE

1931: Editors and AP managers meet for first time, but not successfully.

1932: Similar meeting goes better, at first.

1933: First convention meets in French Lick, Indiana.

1941: AP editors criticize newspaper editors, for a change.

1942: Wartime travel restraints mean no convention.

1944-45: War makes travel too difficult for editors to meet.

1946-47: Continuing Studies Committees are started.

1948: APME is incorporated.

1948: Red Book, a report of convention doings, makes debut.

1949: APME receives Distinguished Service Award from Sigma Delta Chi (now Society of Professional Journalists) for “outstanding accomplishment” in journalism research.

1952: 125 editors serve on 14 study committees.

1958: 25th anniversary: APME returns to site of its founding in French Lick, Indiana.

1964: APME News debuts, as a newsletter to appear between conventions.

12 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

1966: President Johnson signs U.S. Freedom of Information Act. 1967: Personnel Committee for first time has subcommittee titled Negroes in Journalism.

JOHNSON 1968: Kerner Commission report issued in wake of urban unrest faults news media for ignoring black communities and news.

1969: Black News Committee is created as part of Continuing Studies.

1971: APME at Philadelphia convention presents its first Freedom of Information Award and its first Public Service Award.

1971: APME Regents is organized.

1972: 374 members, the most ever, sign up for 14 study committees.

1972-82: FOI Committee fights First Amendment battles against courts, legislatures and Congress.

1973: Dorothy Jurney wins election to board of directors at Orlando, Florida, convention, becoming first woman to sit on the governing board.

1978: Protester in Portland, Oregon, hits speaker Howard Jarvis in the face with a pie and runs off.

1979: APME conducts its first major content research study, about sports agate.

1981: APME meets in Toronto for only convention outside United States.

1982: Special ambassador from Mexico falls off speakers’ platform but recovers and wows editors at San Diego convention.

1983: APME board approves study of requirements for, appropriateness of a foundation.

1983: 50th anniversary convention in Louisville, Kentucky, includes fitness lecture from actress Jane Fonda.

1983: Book “Fifty and FONDA Feisty” chronicles the first 50 years.

1983: Editors learn that for the first time, AMs’ circulation exceeds that of PMs. 1984: Editors meeting in Miami learn Louis D. Boccardi will be the next president of The >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Associated Press.

1986: Editors at Cincinnati convention hear warning that classifieds, the ad foundation of newspaper revenue, are vulnerable to electronic competition.

1988: Former APME president warns colleagues that being covered by the press “can be hell.”

1988: Attendance in Boston tops 650, the last time APME will see such numbers.

1988: Membership in Boston approves creation of a foundation.

1989: APME Foundation receives 501(c)(3) status.

1989: APME presents its first Meritorious Service Award to its longtime FOI champion, Hu Blonk.

1989: Editors learn in Des Moines, Iowa, that newspaper share of local ad dollars has shrunk from 75-80 percent to roughly 50.

1989: APME Gazette is created to cover the conventions and is staffed by area journalism students.

1989: Last Red Book is published as full account of annual convention.

1990: Electronic issues ---- access to public records and photo ethics ---- occupy Dallas convention.

1992: Sue Reisinger, first woman president, presides at convention in Honolulu.

1993: APME is warned during Minneapolis convention that the press’s “careless and biased” coverage of Arabs and the Middle East could have serious repercussions.

1993-94: How to stop decline in convention attendance occupies leadership.

1994: Mall of Ideas appears at Philadelphia convention.

1994: APME adopts current Statement of Ethical Principles after two-year effort.

1995: Bob McGruder takes gavel as APME’s first black president at end of Indianapolis convention.

1998: Area journalism students (besides Gazette staff) and their professors are invited to convention at Disneyland, Anaheim, California, as APME creates program to encourage next generation.

1999: APME joins with American Society of Newspaper Editors to create and promote “Time Out for Diversity and Accuracy.”

1999-2000: APME grapples with whether to seek merger with ASNE. 2000: Credibility Roundtables get under way.

2000-01: Online editors are welcomed to

conventions.

2001: Associated Press Photo Managers is incorporated.

2001: Planners of Milwaukee conference scheduled for Oct. 10 start over after 9/11 attacks.

2001: Membership votes to designate board seats for online editors.

2002: First online editor is elected to governing board during Baltimore conference.

2002: Robert G. McGruder Diversity Awards presented for first time.

2002: NewsTrain, a national professional development effort, kicks off.

2003: Boccardi retires and his successor, Tom Curley, outlines goals to create digital information powerhouse.

2003: APME hires its first projects director.

2003: International Project offers help on covering local effects of world news.

2003: APME and foundation get first full-time executive director 2004: “Embedded readers,” editors often differ during Louisville convention.

2006: APME meets in New Orleans a year after Hurricane Katrina and honors two top local editors.

2006: Best ideas from Credibility Roundtables published in book, “Building Trust in the News; 101+ Good Ideas for Editors from Editors.”

2007: APME holds first conference in Washington, D.C. 2007: APME presents first Innovator of the Year Award.

2008: APME partners with University of Missouri J School for major survey about credibility of online journalism.

2008: APME partners with Taxpayers for Common Sense, leads national reporting effort on earmarks.

2010-11: Partners with The Associated Press to launch the Broken Budgets reporting initiative, exploring the fiscal crises in state and local governments. Led to AP-APME projects in Pennsylvania, Illinois and other states.

2011: The organization’s name changes to Associated Press Media Editors and the board approves expanding its ranks to include AP-broadcast news leaders, college journalism educators and college student editors.

2011-12: Partners with The Associated Press to launch the Aging America reporting initiative.

2012: NewsTrain, fully funded early in its ninth year, attracts sellout crowds in Phoenix, Miami and Toronto.

2012: APME expands its annual journalism contest to include innovation awards for radio and television and college media.

2012: APME begins a community journalism initiative, offering $1,000 for a small paper to produce a project.

2012: APME holds its annual conference for the first time at the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University. During it Seigenthaler is presented with an APME President’s Award.

2013: The annual conference is held at the Indiana State Museum and J.W. Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

2014: APME joins forces with the American Society of News Editors for the first time to hold a joint annual conference in Chicago. The theme is ASNE/APME/APPM 2014: Fast Forward 2015: The second joint ASNE/APME/APPM conference is held in Palo Alto, California, on the Stanford University campus. The theme is 3-D: Digital, Diversity, Disruption.

2016: Continuing their conference collaboration, ASNE/APME/APPM meets in Philadelphia for the News Leadership Conference.

2017: Washington, D.C., is the site for the ASNE/APME/APPM News Leadership Conference.

2018: During the ASNE/APME News Leadership Conference in Austin, Texas, the memberships officially votes to merge the two news leaders organizations in 2019. The new organization will be called the News Leaders Association. The foundations will remain separate, for now. n

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

13

APME NEWS

Since 1971, this special group helps support The Associated Press and has helped build APME over many decades

MEET THE REGENTS

By Bob Haiman

S

APME Regents Chairman

ince 1971, the group known as the APME Regents has held a reception and dinner meeting during the convention. The Regents is made up of past presidents of APME, top AP news executives, and a few others, including members of APME who did not become officers or presidents but who were inducted because of their outstanding service to APME or the AP. The Regents was founded by APME Past President Don Carter at the conclusion of his convention in Philadelphia. He called a small group of past presidents together and told them, “It seems to me there should be some way to continue the wonderful friendships created through APME work over the years. It also seems to me there should be some way to recognize many APME members who have made tremendous contributions yet did not become APME officers.” What Carter started, continues today, almost a half-century on.

The Regents pay for all of the expenses of their annual reception and dinner and like to note that they have no work assignments of any kind other than to attend the annual reception and dinner, enjoy the company of old and new friends, and have fun.

Despite that seeming pledge of non-interest other than fun, the truth is quite different. The Regents are the men and women who supported the AP and built APME over many decades. They actually have strong views and care deeply about news, news values, good journalism, and the importance of a free and vigorous press in a self-governing democracy.

Eleven years ago, when a call went out under the leadership of Regent Karen Magnuson for an additional $75,000 to be >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

14 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

Four Regents who were friends for many decades: The late Joe Ungaro (left), Jim Daubel, Bob Giles and Bob Haiman.

For more than 20 years, Regents Chairman Bob Haiman has not only organized the annual receptions and dinners, he’s also been the emcee for all of them. He’s wearing the badge of the Regents’ Chair, which quotes Alexander Haig’s infamous “I am in control here!” announcement. Of course, in an organization mainly composed of former top editors, no one is ever completely in charge! (The photo was taken some years ago, when Haiman had more hair on his head and less under his nose.)

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

raised to support an APME Foundation fund drive, 10 Regents stepped up and wrote checks for $7,500 each. (For their action, they all were made Life Members of APME.) Following Carter, the founder, the chairmen of the Regents – each serving approximately two to three years – included: n Gilbert Smith, of the Utica ObserverDispatch. n Wendell Phillippi of the Indianapolis News. n John C. Quinn of Gannett Newspapers. n Dick Smyser of the Oak Ridger. n Robert Clark of The Courier-Journal and Louisville Times. n Joseph Shoquist of the Milwaukee Journal. n Barclay Jameson of the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Bob Haiman has been the chairman of the Regents since 1986, assisted by Treasurer Jim Daubel. He swears that after 33 years it’s time for someone else to take over the job, which includes finding a site, selecting reception and dinner menus, pricing the evening per person, sending out bills, collecting the money, organizing the party and acting as emcee, and keeping all members informed by publishing newsletters between meetings.

There are about 75 living members of the Regents and 30 to 40 attend the meeting each year. The receptions and dinners are marked by a combination of nostalgia, celebration and roast; a special kind of insider levity that always is completely off the record.

Although it is not widely known, there was a good-natured but spirited argument at the founding over what the group should be called.

Past President I. William (Bill) Hill of the Washington Star ----- a famously merry

The 2011 APME convention marked the 40th year of the APME Regents, and many attended in Denver, Regents Chairman Bob Haiman has his arm on the shoulder of Regents founder Don Carter who died in 2016 at 99 years old.

Bob Haiman, Dr. Nancy Giles, Don Carter and Bob Giles.

prankster ----- fought hard for “Moguls” and another past president lobbied for “Ultimate Poohbahs.”

And there were a few somewhat more raunchy suggestions. But Carter prevailed with “APME Regents,” which is what still appears today on the black onyx and gold round lapel pins that identify the wearer as a member of the group.

As APME and ASNE merge to create NLA, From left, L.D. “Mac” McAlister, Jenk Jones, Jim Daubel, Bob Haiman, Wendell Phillippi, Joe Shoquist and Jack Powers.

the News Leaders Association, the APME Regents also is evolving to keep up with the changes: n It plans to continue to hold its annual reception and dinner where and when NLA is convening, as it has been doing with APME and ASNE, a plan that NLA has welcomed. n It plans to induct incoming presidents of NLA as they take office, as it has always welcomed incoming APME presidents. n It also plans to invite some ASNE past presidents who would like to join. n It plans to maintain its longtime relationship with The Associated Press. n It plans to change its name to “The Regents” although vestigial signs of “APME Regents” may linger for a while, including on the distinctive lapel pins.

And as the years unfold, other changes and adaptations may be necessary. n

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

15

APME NEWS

Claire Jinks, Larry Jinks and Don Carter. For many years, Larry and Don held the titles of vice president/news for Knight-Ridder, Jinks for the larger newspapers of the group and Carter for the smaller ones.

Regent Dick Smyser, who wrote and directed all of the amateur vaudeville shows at APME conventions for many years. On his lap is Sylvia Poorman, who was a female lead in many of them. Rear: Jim Daubel, Sally Daubel, Mary Smyser, Dorothy Shoquist, Bob Haiman, Joe Shoquist and Bob Giles.

For several decades, Bob Haiman has chaired the Regents and organized the annual receptions and dinners, and treasurer Jim Daubel has collected the money and paid the food and beverage bills. A “good year” is regarded as one in which the bar bill did not go way over budget, which has happened. By the look of their smiles, this must have been a “good year.”

Chris Peck, Bob Haiman, Kate Duignan Peck and Don Carter.

16 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

Annette McGruder, Don Carter and Rich Archbold.

APME NEWS

APME founder explains how it all began

N

o history of the Regents would be complete without separate and special mention of its founder, “Gentleman Don” Carter. It was Don (as you’ve read in an adjacent article) who had the idea of creating the Regents, an idea that became fully formed in 1971, during his year as APME President, when the convention was in Philadelphia.

In his own words, this is how he came to get the idea: “For several years, while climbing the APME ladder, I noticed how many editors would devote time and talent as Study Committee chairs, and then Board members, and then officers, and then often Presidents…...and then drop out after their time of service was over. There ought to be some way, I thought, to get them to continue their participation…..or at least their interest…..in APME, and their connection with each other. During my year as President, the idea occurred that we might be able to form a loosely organized group of former Presidents...and some other APME stalwarts and a few key AP news executives. to meet annually during each APME convention – mostly for fun and fellowship, but also being available for some assignment, if ever called upon.”

He tried the idea out on several past presidents, and they liked it.

The next year, the convention was in Kansas City, and the first full meeting of the APME Regents was held. It was a luncheon, although in a few years it was agreed that a cocktail reception and a dinner, with spouses and guests, was more appropriate.

And that is how it all began.

Carter was not just the founder of the Regents, he was, until his death at 99 in 2017, the senior member of APME. He had been a member for more than 55 years and had attended annual conventions well into his mid-nineties, always accompanied by the woman he called “Miss Carolyn,”

Don Carter in 1976.

to whom he had been married for six decades, in a relationship that Don called “a most exceptional and delightful marriage!”

(Carolyn Carter, who preceded Don in death, was an accomplished journalist and the first woman to be hired by the Atlanta Journal and Constitution as a full-time news photographer.)

Carter joined the Atlanta Journal as a reporter in 1938 with a freshly minted journalism degree from the University of Georgia. He volunteered three months before Pearl Harbor, telling friends, “I could smell there was a war coming on and I wanted to be in it!”

He served as an Army intelligence officer, doing secret work in Asia about which he never spoke. After the war, he returned to the Journal and rose to city editor. He was executive editor of the Macon (Georgia)

Telegraph & News, executive editor of the Bergen Record in Hackensack, New Jersey; founding managing editor of Dow Jones’ National Observer; executive director of the Wall Street Journal’s Newspaper Fund; publisher of the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader; and ended his career in 1982 as vice president/news of Knight Ridder Newspapers.

His first APME convention was in 1962 in Minneapolis. Don’s accomplishments are woven through the tapestry of APME. Continuing Studies Committee chairs had been accustomed to enrolling about 200 members for committee work evaluating and critiquing the AP report. Don raised that number to 350.

When APME held its first convention outside the continental U.S in 1970, it was Don who mastered the somewhat tricky hotel registration and advance payment rules then required in Hawaii.

He was an intrepid adventurer who continued to travel the world into his nineties, often with his beloved Carolyn, sometimes by himself. In recent years, he’d gone to China, Easter Island and Ghana, not the easiest of tourist destinations.

Those who have traveled with him can testify that Don was the same unfailingly polite southern gentleman in any far corner of the world that he was at home; that he was always the first person up in the morning and down to breakfast, and by no means the first to leave the bar after dinner; that he could walk the legs off companions half his age; that he always was impeccably dressed in jacket and tie in several different combinations; so nattily that it would appear he must have packed at least four different suits for the trip in a huge piece of checked luggage .. but that in fact he managed to do it all in only two small carry-on bags the size of a large briefcase!

Don and Carolyn never had any children, but Don left his estate to benefit young people, especially young people interested in journalism careers. Almost all of the money went to the University of Georgia, where Don had received his journalism degree. n

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

17

APME NEWS

THE APME ARCHIVES

Wisconsin Historical Society is proud home to mass communications mecca

By Thomas Koetting

A

Deputy Managing Editor Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

s newspaper editors from across the country checked into the Fairmont Hotel in fall 1951, they received a pocket-sized convention schedule that looked like a wedding program.

On Wednesday, the booklet noted, a writing seminar would be offered while the annual fashion luncheon for APME Women took place in the Venetian Room (where Tony Bennett would debut “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” a decade later). Thursday would be left open to sightseeing, with the Committee on Arrangements available to line up visits to tourist attractions. Friday’s sessions would culminate in a banquet, with the Honolulu Star Bulletin providing leis to everyone in attendance. The master of ceremonies: Bob Hope.

Sprinkled throughout the convention would be discussions on training, finances, ethics, public records, technological advances – staples of an Associated Press Managing Editors gathering. And there would be more for those who could stay through the weekend – a Stanford football game on Saturday, a 49ers game on Sunday.

Looking back, what’s surprising is not just the lavishness of the event or the cultural whiplash some events convey (ahem, APME Women?) It’s that the San Francisco convention booklet and associated papers were not lost to history. They remain in impeccable condition, part of a trove of APME material stored at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison.

18 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

Above: Shelves loaded with archives fill part of the State Archive Preservation Facility in Madison. The building opened in 2018 because the Wisconsin Historical Society building had become overstocked. PHOTO BY DAVID ERICKSON / WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY Top left: The APME archives are cared for by the Wisconsin Historical Society, which has occupied this building in Madison on the campus of the University of Wisconsin since 1900.

PHOTO BY THOMAS KOETTING

Founded in 1846, two years before Wisconsin achieved statehood, the Historical Society is one of the largest and most active state historical societies in the country. Its library and archives collection cares for upwards of 4 million items, and it attracts more than 300,000 visitors annually to its museums and historic sites.

When APME decided in 1969 to create a repository for its records, it selected the Historical Society – specifically its Mass Communications History Center – over numerous other offers. Established in 1955

to chronicle the importance of mass media in American life, the center holds the papers of hundreds of renowned journalists, media corporations and professional organizations, as well as photos, videos, films, and publications.

“It came about because H.V. Kaltenborn, a pioneering radio commentator, happened to be born in Merrill, Wisconsin, and he was in contact with the Historical Society. He became collection number one,” said Lee Grady, reference archivist for the society’s >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

One of the 142 archival boxes devoted to APME material that is maintained by the Wisconsin Historical Society. The APME collection includes material related to the background and history of APME, its directors and officers, its committees and publications, its awards and citations, and other communications and personal papers.

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Division of Library-Archives. “Then he gave us his contacts in the business – decades worth of contacts – and we started going down the list, getting in touch with people. So some of this has come about because of his connection to Wisconsin. But it’s also because we recognized that mass communications was one of the most important factors in the development of 20th century America.”

The APME collection fills 142 archive boxes ----- each containing carefully marked folders divided into topics or events ----- and seven boxes of negatives. Officially, the collection spans 1935 to 2005, but the bulk is from the 1950s to the early 1980s. It is also inconsistent, because it relied on members ----- mostly former officers and board members ----- to turn over whatever records they saved, and some did better than others.

Nevertheless, the correspondence, committee reports, speeches, photodirector of public services for graphs, audio recordings, and the society’s Division of personal papers offer remarkLibrary-Archives. “Our big able insight into the concerns museum pieces, many of our and conversations of American archives and our library newspaper leaders at the collections are in there. Its zenith of their influence. contents are essentially They also reflect the norms priceless.” of the day. There is a noticeable APME’s collection runs from repetition to the photos: white the insightful to the amusing. men with suits, ties, drinks, There is lengthy correspontobacco and plenty of slick hair dence in 1956 lamenting the dressing. slow adoption of color printing Some of the collection is in on the editorial side in the Historical Society’s main To mark its 50th anniversary, APME published newspapers. There is an building on the University of Wisconsin campus. Completed “Fifty and Feisty – APME: argument in 1961 over whether 1933 to 1983.” It was television should be considered in 1900, it was the most compiled and edited by a mass communicator (yes, expensive building built by the William Cento, editor of really). There are ongoing state at that time, a monument the St. Paul Dispatch, to Neoclassic Revival architecwith help from two retired discussions about improving the influence of women and ture. The rest has been moved Wisconsin journalists. minorities in newsrooms. There to the State Archive Preservaare photos of famous speakers ----- Nelson tion Facility, opened in 2018 a few miles Rockefeller, Robert Kennedy, Lady Bird away. The climate-controlled warehouse has Johnson. And there are references to a 1978 55,000 archival boxes, 200,000 books and gathering of The Regents ----- the APME more than a half-million artifacts ----- everyleadership alumni group – that featured thing from a vintage Harley-Davidson (pause, deep breath) belly dancers. motorcycle to a printing press from the 1850s At the end of a 1957 letter on how he to a newspaper vending box for The Onion. constructed a newsroom library, Ted Durein, “It is probably the most highly secured executive editor of the Monterey Peninsula building in the state,” said Lisa Saywell,

PHOTO BY THOMAS KOETTING.

Wendell Phillippi, program chair of the 1971 convention in Philadelphia, reacts to last-minute news that Richard Nixon would not appear as a speaker. Phillippi believed the president had learned that Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, also was scheduled to speak.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Herald, wrote: “It is simple, but it works.

Even a managing editor can understand it.”

And then there’s this: “APME owes me some money for John Quinn’s present,” Larry Jinks, editor of the Miami Herald, wrote in 1974. “The total is >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

19

APME NEWS

APME attendees welcome Lady Bird Johnson as a speaker at the 1965 convention in Buffalo. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. >> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

$57.94. If you want it itemized, it goes like this: 1 metal tennis racquet $49.87; 1 T-shirt with the insignia ‘It Takes Balls to Play Tennis,’ $3.07; 1 can of balls $2.50. Happy New Year.”

The most comprehensive document by far is a paperback called “Fifty and Feisty ----APME: 1933-1983,” edited by William Cento, managing editor of the St. Paul Dispatch. The book was clearly a labor of love ----- or a function of drawing the short straw ----- for Cento, and an entire archives box is devoted to the conception and progress of the book, down to the hand-drawn dummy sheets for each page.

Two photos virtually jump out of the finished product.

The first shows APME editors at the 1949 Fort Worth convention lined up atop the wings of a B-36 at Carswell Air Force Base. It

20 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

is a portrait of power and importance. The second shows Wendell Phillippi, program chair of the 1971 convention in Philadelphia, burying his head after finding out that Richard Nixon would not appear as a speaker.

Phillippi, managing editor of the Indianapolis News, believed the president had learned that Daniel Ellsberg, who had just released the Pentagon Papers, also was scheduled to speak.

The intention in keeping all these documents is not nostalgia. Reflecting on the APME collection, Arville Schaleben, a retired news executive of The Milwaukee Journal, wrote in 1983: “It is an invaluable guide to what APME members have done to justify America’s faith in the First Amendment.”

The Historical Society’s Grady said the archives are used by middle schoolers working on History Day projects, college

students doing research papers, academics writing books, filmmakers working on documentaries.

“Our emphasis is always on access,” Grady said. “We do everything we can to make the material available. We don’t want anyone to think it’s hidden away; we encourage its use.

That’s particularly appropriate considering the journalists featured in the collection appear to have wanted to be remembered and revisited. Just ask the ones who put together the 1954 convention in Tampa. They produced what is surely the longest one-sentence resolution in APME history ----- 407 words, 19 commas, nine semicolons.

Its point? To praise everyone who planned and staged the convention.

If you have questions about the archives, contact: askarchives@wisconsinhistory.org.

A discussion among attendees at the 1971 convention reflects many of the scenes found in the APME archives – white men with suits, ties, drinks, tobacco and plenty of slick hair dressing. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

APME editors and guests line up along the wings of a B-36 bomber at Carswell Air Force Base during the 1949 Fort Worth convention. Just three years earlier, the base had become headquarters of the 8th Air Force. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

21

APME NEWS

Sally Buzbee Executive Editor, The Associated Press

A unique partnership

AP and APME have navigated the course together

S

even decades ago, the legendary editor Lee Hills, then president of the Associated Press Managing Editors, described the organization like this: “Where else in the world,” he wrote, “is there another institution where the producers and the users of a product work so closely together to refine it?”

He was talking of the unique relationship between The Associated Press and the APME — a proud connection across the generations that has always helped make the AP better, more responsive and more focused on what its members need.

The world, of course, is very different today. The economic models of local journalism are, in many places, under stress. The line between those who produce the news and those who consume it has blurred, and in some cases disappeared entirely. Anyone with an internet connection can be a publisher, and we have no shortage of information to consume — both accurate and wildly inaccurate.

Yet still, in the middle of it all, the AP and APME — which, of course, has since evolved into the Associated Press Media Editors — have navigated their way together.

I have seen this relationship play out since the very beginning of my career. From my first AP job in Kansas, the APME was always there. It offered expertise and wisdom and collaboration. Most of all, it always offered a sense that we were part of something bigger — not just across the map but across the decades, ensuring that the gathering and production of fast, reliable, insightful news across the republic would continue apace.

For the AP, APME has been an indispensable sounding board — for myself, my leadership team and our predecessors. APME board meetings and the annual conference have provided invaluable opportunities for the AP to understand, from the ground across the nation, journalism issues that may have seemed limited to one geography but were popping up everywhere.

Many of these centered on state government issues: pensions in trouble, health care costs and the like. But they extended to social issues like opioids and unemployment. It worked in the other direction as well. AP was able to identify, from a national level, a real shift in education toward charter schools, for example, which APME members then could use to help inform the journalism in their own communities. That has happened more than once, and the in-depth data localization projects that AP does today were born of these kinds of conversations.

22 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

In fact, I don’t think it’s overstating things to suggest that the AP cooperative itself survives on precisely the type of back-and-forth that APME has provided. By understanding news leaders and their issues on a local level, AP has been able to craft its mission in the states and Washington to complement the best U.S. journalism possible, no matter the era.

I also don’t want to underestimate the value of frank, smart conversation about an industry with challenges — and the efforts to develop smart strategies to support U.S. journalism writ large. The fellowship there has been remarkable, as has the APME network that has helped talented editors find landing places when news outlets make changes.

From training to sharing industry intelligence, from freedom of information efforts to important and recurrent pushes toward diversity, we are and remain in this together. We simply must be.

Smart, fact-based journalism in all formats is more necessary than ever in today’s ocean of unverified information. What I take from the history of APME — and from the commitment of the newly minted News Leaders Association — is that in a world where fragmentation now rules, sticking together and forming something larger and stronger can often be a salvation.

Just after World War II, AP’s then-executive editor Alan J. Gould and our then-general manager, Frank J. Starzel, co-wrote a piece about AP’s and APME’s activities together, and they outlined the road ahead.

The charge of both AP and its newspaper counterparts, they said, was “to meet the great challenges of a world torn by political, economic and ideological conflict — and to meet those challenges with news reports as fearlessly honest as they are thoroughly accurate.” When I think of the path that AP and APME have walked together, this is what stands out to me the most. It was on point then, and it’s even more pivotal now.

Today, I suddenly find myself a member of a third-generation journalism family. My younger daughter, Margaret, is dipping her toe into the journalism world. I couldn’t be more pleased. And I am gratified that the News Leaders Association, an equally forceful if not even more robust voice, will be there for the careers of today’s emerging journalists just as APME was there for me, and for countless others.

After all, an institution where the producers and the users of a product work closely together to refine it is not something we can afford to lose — particularly when it comes to our shared mission to inform the world. That is APME’s most valuable legacy, and — in new form, now — its continuing gift to our industry. n

APME NEWS

APME conferences and presidents from 1933 to today 1933: French Lick, Ind.: President Oliver Owen Kuhn, Washington Star 1934: Chicago: President Oliver Owen Kuhn, Washington Star 1935: Chicago: President Oliver Owen Kuhn, Washington Star 1936: Chicago: President Oliver Owen Kuhn, Washington Star 1937: New Orleans: President Roy A. Roberts, Kansas City Star 1938: Cleveland: President Walter M. Harrison, Oklahoma City Times and Oklahoman 1939: New York: President N.R. Howard, Cleveland News 1940: Louisville: President C.G. Wellington, Kansas City Star 1941: Chicago: President Neil H. Swanson, Baltimore Sun 1942: No conference 1943: Chicago: President Basil L. Walters, Minneapolis Star-Journal and Tribune 1944-45: Miami: (held January 1946): President George W. Healy Jr., New Orleans Times-Picayune 1946: Los Angeles: President W.R. Arnold, Milwaukee Journal 1947: Detroit: President A.Y. Aronson, Louisville Times 1948: Chicago: President Stanley P. Barnett, Cleveland Plain Dealer 1949: Fort Worth, Texas: President William P. Steven, Minneapolis Tribune 1950: Atlanta: President Lee Hills, Miami Herald 1951: San Francisco: President L.R. Blanchard, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle 1952: Boston: President Herbert F. Corn, Washington Star 1953: Chicago: President Norman E. Isaacs, Louisville Times 1954: Tampa, Fla.: President Wallace Lomoe, Milwaukee Journal 1955: Colorado Springs: President Vincent S. Jones, Gannett Newspapers 1956: Philadelphia: President V.M. Newton Jr., Tampa Tribune 1957: New Orleans: President Frank Eyerly, Des Moines Register 1958: French Lick, Ind.: President Coleman Harwell, Nashville Tennessean 1959: Seattle: President Michael J. Ogden, Providence Journal-Bulletin 1960: Williamsburg, Va.: President John H. Colburn, Richmond TimesDispatch 1961: Dallas: President J. Edward Murray, Arizona Republic 1962: Minneapolis: President Ed Stone, Seattle Post-Intelligencer 1963: Miami: President Mason Walsh, Phoenix Gazette 1964: Phoenix: President Sam Ragan, Raleigh News & Observer and Times 1965: Buffalo, N.Y.: President George Beebe, Miami Herald 1966: San Diego: President William B. Dickinson, Philadelphia Bulletin 1967: Chicago: President I. William Hill, Washington Star 1968: Oklahoma City: President David N. Schutz, Redwood City Tribune 1969: Hartford, Conn.: President Charles S. Rowe, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star 1970: Honolulu: President Gilbert P. Smith, Utica Observer-Dispatch 1971: Philadelphia: President Don Carter, The Record (Hackensack, N.J.) and Macon (Ga.) Telegram & News 1972: Kansas City: President Wendell C. Phillippi, Indianapolis News 1973: Orlando, Fla.: President John C. Quinn, Gannett Newspapers, Rochester, N.Y. 1974: Long Beach, Calif.: President Richard D. Smyser, Oak Ridge (Tenn.)

Oak Ridger 1975: Williamsburg, Va.: President Robert P. Clark, Louisville CourierJournal and Times 1976: New York: President Larry Jinks, Miami Herald 1977: New Orleans: President John Leard, Richmond Times-Dispatch and News Leader 1978: Portland, Ore.: Barclay Jameson, Santa Fe New Mexican 1979: Tulsa, Okla.: Joseph W. Shoquist, Milwaukee Journal 1980: Phoenix: President Ed Cony, Wall Street Journal

1981: Toronto: President Larry Allison, Long Beach Independent and Press-Telegram 1982: San Diego: President: Robert J. Haiman, St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times 1983: Louisville, Ky.: President Joseph M. Ungaro, Westchester Rockland (N.Y.) Newspapers 1984: Miami: President Ted M. Natt, Longview (Wash.) Daily News 1985: San Francisco: President Michael J. Davies, Harford (Conn.) Courant 1986: Cincinnati: President James F. Daubel, Fremont (Ohio) NewsMessenger 1987: Seattle: President Robert E. Rhodes, Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller Times 1988: Boston: President Robert H. Giles, Detroit (Mich.) News 1989: Des Moines, Iowa: President Paul Janensch, West Nyack (N.Y.) Journal-News 1990: Dallas: President Gene Foreman, Philadelphia Inquirer 1991: Detroit: President Ralph Langer, The Dallas Morning News 1992: Honolulu: President Sue Reisinger, Miami Herald 1993: Minneapolis: President Robert W. Ritter, Gannett News Service 1994: Philadelphia: President Rich Archbold, Long Beach (Calif.) Press Telegram 1995: Indianapolis: President Larry Beaupre, Cincinnati Enquirer 1996: Denver: President Robert G. McGruder, Detroit Free Press 1997: Atlanta: President David Hawpe, Louisville Courier Journal 1998: Anaheim, Calif.: President Reid MacCluggage, The Day (New London, Conn.)

1999: Memphis: President Pam Johnson, Arizona Republic 2000: San Antonio: President Jerry Ceppos, San Jose Mercury News 2001: Milwaukee: President Chris Peck, Spokesman Review, Spokane, Wash.

2002: Baltimore: President Caesar Andrews, Detroit Free Press 2003: Phoenix: President Ed Jones, The Free-Lance Star, Fredericksburg, Va. 2004: Louisville: President Stuart Wilk, The Dallas Morning News 2005: San Jose, Calif.: President Deanna Sands, Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald 2006: New Orleans: President Suki Dardarian, Seattle Times 2007: Washington, D.C.: President Karen Magnuson, Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, N.Y. 2008: Las Vegas: President David Ledford, The News Journal, Wilmington, Del. 2009: St. Louis: President Bobbie Jo Buel, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson 2010: Poynter, St. Petersburg, Fla.: President Otis Sanford, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.

2011: Denver: President Hollis Towns, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press 2012: Nashville: President Bob Heisse, State Journal-Register, Springfield, Ill. 2013: Indianapolis: President Brad Dennison, GateHouse Media Inc. 2014: Chicago (first joint conference with ASNE): President Debra Adams Simmons, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer 2015: Palo Alto, Calif.: President Alan D. Miller, The Columbus Dispatch 2016: Philadelphia: President Laura Sellers, The Daily Astorian, Astoria, Oregon 2017: Washington, D.C.: President Bill Church, GateHouse Media 2018: Austin, Texas.: President Jim Simon, CivilBeat.org (voted to merge with ASNE) 2019: New Orleans: President Angie Muhs, The State Journal-Register in Springfield, Illinois. (final APME president)

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

23

APME NEWS

NLA WINNERS

New organization continues the long heritage of ASNE and APME

T

he American Society of News Editors and Associated Press Media Editors announced the winners of this year’s NLA Awards for distinguished writing, digital storytelling and photography. The winning work is a collection of high-quality, high-impact journalism from news outlets of various sizes and platforms.

The NLA Awards honors the best in print, digital, photo and video content in 11 categories. The contest drew over 500 entries.

This is the first year of the NLA Awards, continuing the 39-year tradition of the ASNE Awards and the 48-year tradition of the APME Awards, among the most prestigious in journalism. Many of the categories are sponsored and come with cash prizes, thanks to a group of editors from the former Knight Ridder Inc., The Dallas Morning News, Advance Publications Inc., the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Seattle Times, the Chicago Tribune, the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism at Marquette University in Milwaukee and The New York Times.

“We are proud to recognize this collection of exceptional work,” said ASNE President Nancy Barnes. “Newsrooms small and large are steadfastly reporting on the most important stories of the day, calling out abuses of power and wrong-doing, and delivering journalism that makes a difference.”

“These winners rose to the top from a group of outstanding entries,” said APME President Angie Muhs, former editor of The State Journal-Register in Springfield, Il. “They told powerful stories that shone light on injustices or dangers faced by vulnerable people, and in many cases, their journalism led to change.”

With the exception of the Batten Medal and the O’Brien Fellowship Award for Impact in Public Service Journalism, which covered work published since 2017, the awards were given for work completed in 2018. All news websites, news services (including radio, TV stations and magazines) and newspapers in the United States were eligible to enter. Outside the United States, news organizations that are headed by an active member of ASNE or APME were also eligible.

Judging took place both online and on site at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. Following are the winners and finalists of each category, along with remarks from the judges:

Batten Medal for Courage in Journalism Maggie Michael of The Associated Press is the winner of the Batten Medal, which honors public service journalism in memory of revered reporter, editor and newspaper executive James K. Batten. The medal is intended to celebrate the journalistic values Batten stood for: compassion, courage, humanity and a deep concern for the under-

24 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

dog. Michael will receive $2,500 for winning the award, sponsored by a group of editors from the former Knight Ridder Inc. Winning work: “Yemen’s Dirty War” From the judges: “Maggie Michael’s dogged and persistent reporting in war-torn Yemen serves as the very definition of the Batten category. It’s courageous, sustained coverage with substantial impact. Michael’s reporting revealed a host of injustices ----- including the deployment of child soldiers as young as 10, torture by factions on all sides of the war, and corruption that had diverted international food aid from starving families. The reporting led to scores of prisoners released from Emirati-controlled prisons, investigations and UN intervention.”

Finalists: • Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan, Paul Pringle, Sarah Parvini and Adam Elmahrek, Los Angeles Times ----- “A Scandal at USC” • Hannah Dreier, ProPublica (in partnership with New York magazine, Newsday, This American Life, and New York Times Magazine) ----- “Trapped in Gangland”

Burl Osborne Award for Editorial Leadership ----Large and Small The staff of The Palm Beach Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, The Miami Herald and WLRN Public Radio will receive $1,250 for winning the Burl Osborne Award for Editorial Leadership Large division, and Corey Friedman of The Wilson Times will receive $1,250 for winning the Burl Osborne Award for Editorial Leadership Small division. This award recognizes editorial writing that is excellent journalism and >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

makes a difference in a community. The award is sponsored by The Dallas Morning News in memory of Burl Osborne, who died in 2012.

Large ---- Winning work: “The Invading Sea: Can South Florida be saved?”

From the judges: “Judges were impressed with this partnership, which marshalled resources to educate and urge readers to take action on a critical regional issue. In crisp and compelling language, these editorials articulated complicated issues and how they would affect residents, conveying a sense of responsible urgency without undue sensationalism or panic. These were well-reported and a public service.”

Finalists: • Kevin Walter, The Buffalo News ---- “Cracking Erie County’s patronage-laden Water Authority” • Staff and David Plazas, Michael A. Anastasi, Maria De Varenne, The Tennessean (USA TODAY Network) ---- “Civility Tennessee” Small ---- Winning work: “School’s policy stifles speech” From the judges: “This newspaper tackled an important topic - the public’s right to offer their views to elected officials - and it didn’t let go. It offered readers information to get involved and it effected change. A fine example of a news organization looking out for its readers.”

Finalists: • Staff, Capital Gazette ---- “Capital Gazette” • Jeffery Gerritt, Palestine Herald-Press ---- “What are they hiding?”

Journalism, which celebrates journalism that overcomes ignorance, stereotypes, intolerance, racism, hate, negligence and indifference.

They will receive $2,500 for winning the award, sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in memory of Dori J. Maynard, who was an ASNE board member and a strong advocate for news and newsroom diversity.

Winning work: “Missing in Indian Country” From the judges: “In a story made more difficult because of the lack of a national database, three Associated Press journalists sifted through thousands of missing persons reports and did countless interviews to “bring attention to a largely invisible plight: Native American women who have gone missing or been murdered, their cases too often unsolved or forgotten,” as the nomination letter notes. The compelling reporting sparked local newspaper editorials in North Dakota and Montana, demanding that Congress pass legislation to improve data collection and help address the problem. The Justice Department doubled the funding it gives tribes for public safety programs and crime victims.”

Finalists: • Gary Harki, The Virginian-Pilot ---- “Jailed in Crisis: For many inmates, mental illness is a death sentence” • Staff: Finlay Young, Kathleen Flynn and Nadia Sussman, ProPublica, in collaboration with TIME ---- “Unprotected”

Frank A. Blethen Award for Local Accountability Reporting ---- Large and Small

Dan Barry and Jeffrey E. Singer of The New York Times will receive $2,500 for winning the Deborah Howell Award for Writing Excellence, which recognizes excellence in news and feature writing (except commentary or editorials) that’s not done as breaking news. The award is sponsored by Advance Publications Inc. in memory of former editor Deborah Howell, who died in 2010.

Barbara Laker, Wendy Ruderman and Dylan Purcell of The Philadelphia Inquirer will receive $1,250 for winning the Frank A. Blethen Award for Local Accountability Reporting Large division, and Ed Williams of Searchlight New Mexico will receive $1,250 for winning the Frank A. Blethen Award for Local Accountability Reporting Small division. This award, sponsored by The Seattle Times in honor of Frank A. Blethen, who has been The Times’ publisher and CEO since 1985, recognizes outstanding work done by a news organization that holds important local institutions accountable for their actions.

Winning work: “The Case of Jane Doe Ponytail” From the judges: “An outstanding narrative about a woman from a remote Chinese village who came to the United States with dreams of American citizenship, and ultimately died on a street in Queens outside the seedy massage parlor where she worked. The writing flows seamlessly; the scenes come alive in remarkable detail. A heartbreaking piece that continues to haunt long after the last word is read. Amazing work.”

Finalists: • Kit Chellel, Bloomberg ---- “The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code” • Joe Sexton, ProPublica ---- “I Don’t Want to Shoot You, Brother”

Large ---- Winning work: “Toxic City: Sick Schools” From the judges: “The Inquirer used every tool in the toolbox to craft these compelling stories that sparked a public dialogue and led the community to demand safe and healthy schools. The reporting was tenacious and creative, and put its focus where it needed to be - on the kids who were forced to go to school in these conditions.”

Finalists: • Matthew Dolan and David Jesse, Detroit Free Press ---- “In Donors We Trust” • Kiera Feldman, ProPublica (in partnership with The Investigative Fund and Voice of America) ---- “Trashed: Inside New York’s Deadly Private Garbage Industry”

Dori J. Maynard Award for Justice in Journalism

Large ---- Winning work: “A Pattern of Failures” From the judges: “This small, feisty organization produced an

Deborah Howell Award for Writing Excellence

Sharon Cohen, David Goldman and Mary Hudetz of The Associated Press are the winners of the Dori J. Maynard Award for Justice in

>> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

25

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

investigation into New Mexico’s private foster care industry that was compelling and expertly written, pulling readers through a complex topic. And it got results: spurring a state investigation and putting the issue front-and-center in the state’s gubernatorial race.”

Finalists: • John Cheves, Lexington Herald-Leader ---- “Crisis of Care” • Christian Sheckler, South Bend Tribune, and Ken Armstrong, ProPublica - “Criminal Justice in Elkhart, Indiana”

Mike Royko Award for Commentary and Column Writing Melinda Henneberger of The Kansas City Star will receive $2,500 for winning the Mike Royko Award for Commentary and Column Writing, which recognizes excellence in writing by an individual that expresses a personal point of view. The award is sponsored by the Chicago Tribune in memory of legendary columnist Mike Royko, who died in 1997.

Winning work: Columns by Melinda Henneberger From the judges: “Melinda Henneberger writes with fearlessness and intelligence, whether she is calling to account a popular governor attempting to sidestep scandal, or revealing the news that she had been raped threeplus decades ago and didn’t report it to police. Her columns, often driven by passion and infused with logic, leave readers feeling more enlightened with each building paragraph.”

Finalists: • Nestor Ramos, The Boston Globe • Matt Bai, Yahoo News

O’Brien Fellowship Award for Impact in Public Service Journalism The staff of the South Florida Sun Sentinel are the winners of the O’Brien Fellowship Award for Impact in Public Service Journalism.

This award recognizes public service work that helps solve community or societal issues and leads to changes in laws, regulations or other demonstrated results. They will receive $2,500 for winning the award, sponsored by the fellowship at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

Winning work: “Parkland” From the judges: “The O’Brien Fellowship Award for Impact in Public Service Journalism goes to the South Florida Sun Sentinel for its heroic and fearless reporting of the tragic killings of 17 students and educators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The staff of the Sun Sentinel faced an obstructing and recalcitrant school district, sheriff office, even a court system, which sought to intimidate, block and obfuscate reporters from uncovering the roots of the tragedy. Sun Sentinel staffers, using dogged reporting, public records, legal action, video evidence, uncovered a systematic failure in responsibility before, during and after the murders.”

Finalists:

26 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

• Staff, The Wall Street Journal ---- “Trump’s Hush Money” • Staff, The Associated Press ---- “China Clamps Down”

Punch Sulzberger Award for Innovative Storytelling - Large and Small The staff of The Washington Post is the winner of the Punch Sulzberger Award for Innovative Storytelling Large division and Marcel Honore of Honolulu Civil Beat is the winner of the Punch Sulzberger Award for Innovative Storytelling Small division. This award recognizes excellence and innovation in the use of digital tools to tell news stories. Each winner will receive $1,250 for winning the award, sponsored by The New York Times in memory of former publisher Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger, who died in 2012.

Large ---- Winning work: “1968” From the judges: “The Washington Post told an interactive story of how the 1968 riot happened locally, as well as the story of what occurred globally with 2,000 declassified Secret Service reports, archival photographs, handwritten logs and interviews. It was a stunning comprehensive account of the year. The UI/UX was clean and the interconnectivity between text, photo, video and audio was thoughtful.”

Finalists: • Staff, The Wall Street Journal ---- “Tap” Storytelling” • Staff: Sisi Wei, Nick Fortugno, Matt Katz, Kavitha Surana, ProPublica ---- “The Waiting Game” Small ---- Winning work: “Are We Ready” From the judges: “This project, through clear narrative and excellent use of photography, shows just how unprepared Hawaii is for the inevitable coming of a major hurricane ----- and how lucky it was to avoid a recent one.

The story is very clear, told through multiple pieces, and with a tone that makes it clear that failure to prepare means disaster. Very strong journalism throughout. You’d think volcanoes on the Big Island are enough.”

Finalists: • Beth Schwartzapfel and Emily Kassie, The Marshall Project ----“Banished” • Ryan Murphy, Chris Essig, Darla Cameron, Elbert Wang, Emily Yount, Naema Ahmed, Aliyya Swaby, Alex Samuels and Brandon Formby, The Texas Tribune ----- “The Texas Tribune: Customizing Storytelling”

Al Neuharth Breaking News Reporting Award The staff of Capital Gazette, Annapolis Maryland. and The Baltimore Sun are the winners of the Al Neuharth Breaking News Reporting Award for coverage of the Capital Gazette shooting. This award recognizes coverage of breaking news events produced in the first 24 hours of an event.

Winning work: “Capital Gazette shooting” From the judges: >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

First Amendment Award

“This powerful package of compelling and deeply informative content (in-the-moment tweets, thorough and accurate news stories, photos and poignant profiles) demonstrated courage and dedication in the face of overwhelming personal loss. The journalists put their mission above their misery to inform the public, honor their fallen friends, and still somehow “put out a damn paper.” The work they produced lived up to the highest standards of breaking news reporting while covering a horrific tragedy in their own work place, their own lives. The judges would like to give special recognition to the Capital Gazette staff members that did stellar work that day and have continued to do so in the weeks and months since the tragedy as they honor those who lost their lives on June 28: Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters.”

Finalists: • Staff, The Kansas City Star ---- “Tragedy on Table Rock Lake” • Staff, Miami Herald ---- “The Fall of the Florida International University Bridge”

Stephen Deere, Dan Klepal, J. Scott Trubey and Kelly Yamanouchi of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution are the winners of the First Amendment Award. This award recognizes the best example of protecting or advancing freedom of information principles, and/or overcoming significant resistance to the application of the First Amendment. The First Amendment Award winner receives $1,000, sponsored by Middle Tennessee State University’s Free Speech Center.

Visual Journalism Award - Large and Small Kristen Zeis of The Virginian-Pilot is the winner of the Visual Journalism Award Large division, and Todd Wiseman, Alana Rocha and Justin Dehn of The Texas Tribune are the winners of the Visual Journalism Award Small division. This award rewards powerful and meaningful photography, videos and any visual multimedia that capture a community, issue or news event.

Large ---- Winning work: “No Turning Back” From the judges: “This was a revealing look at an important story, especially one that was developing as discussions took place in Washington about the ban on transgender troops. Access with the military was difficult but the story was told well, given what was available. The examination of the topic was done with sensitivity.”

Finalists: • Staff: Gabrielle Lurie, Jessica Christian, and Santiago Mejia, San Francisco Chronicle ---- “Inferno in Paradise” • Gary Coronado, Los Angeles Times ---- “Without a Home”

Winning work: “How Atlanta Trampled the Public’s Right to Know” From the judges: “Over months of reporting, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed a pattern of brazen violations of open-government laws by the administration of Mayor Kasim Reed, a one-time rising star in Democratic politics who had promised the most transparent administration in city history. The reporting lifted the veil on an entirely different reality in which the mayor’s aides repeatedly and deliberately thumbed their noses at the public’s right to know what went on in city government. The coverage produced results: the first-ever criminal investigation of open-records violations in Georgia, and adoption by the city of a government transparency law.”

Finalists: • Staff, South Florida Sun Sentinel ---- “Public officials after Parkland: Hide, deny, spin” • Staff, The Washington Post ---- “Jamal Khashoggi” • Staff: Derek Kravitz, Al Shaw, Claire Perlman, Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica ---- “Trump Town” A group of news leaders and journalism professionals around the nation determined finalists and winners, in addition to the ASNE Awards Committee Co-Chairs Brian McGrory of The Boston Globe and George Stanley of Gannett and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and APME Awards Committee Chair Tom Koetting of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Small ---- Winning work: “The Texas Tribune: 13 Hours to Midnight” From the judges: “Smoothly shifting back and forth between original video and sit-down interviews, The Texas Tribune created a compelling look back at Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis’ 2013 filibuster of anti-abortion legislation. The pacing was excellent, the story gripping, and the reflective nature of the interviews gave balance and context to both sides of the debate. The use of a countdown timeline was particularly effective in building and holding interest.”

Finalists: • Staff, Capital Gazette ---- “Capital Gazette shooting” • Todd Wiseman, Alex Samuels and Christina Shaman, The Texas Tribune ---- “Texas Tribune: Out of Options”

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

27

APME NEWS

AP WINNERS

2019 Associated Press Media Editors Awards for AP staff

A

ccounts of perseverance in the wake of disaster, deep investigative looks into cyber threats against American democracy, and images that highlighted the human side of controversial political issues are among the stories that have won the 2019 Associated Press Media Editors Awards for AP staff.

Dake Kang and Yanan Wang, both 25, were honored for excellence by staffers 30 years old or younger for work exposing the Chinese government’s reach into their citizens’ personal lives. Judges called their work “insightful — even shocking.”

Sharon Cohen, David Goldman and Mary Hudetz were recognized for stories about Native American women and children who disappeared or were killed on tribal lands. The judges called it “great writing, important topic, and remarkable reporting that resonated not just in Indian Country, but across the country.”

Christina Cassidy and Frank Bajak won for their investigative look at the vulnerable American voting system that judges called “aggressive watchdog journalism at a high level.”

The AP’s “mission is to inform the world — fairly, objectively and accurately,” said Thomas Koetting, deputy managing editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and coordinator of the contest. “The work in this year’s competition reflects that mission — and I would add two words: compassion and humanity. In a complex and sometimes inhumane world, AP journalists reached out to those who needed a voice and told stories that otherwise would have remained hidden.”

The annual competition honors the best work by AP staff in news, multimedia and photography and is open to employees in every U.S. state and 100 countries globally.

The judges are national board members of the Associated Press Media Editors, which is in the process of merging with the American Society of News Editors into the News Leaders Association.

The winners are:

Deadline reporting

• Winner: South Region Staff, “Hurricane Michael” • Honorable mention: California Staff, “California Wildfire”

Samuel G. Blackman Award for Enterprise Reporting

• Winners: Lori Hinnant, Bram Janssen and other staff, “The Missing” • Honorable mention: Staff including Rodrigo Abd, Michael Biesecker, Rebecca Blackwell, Allen G. Breed, Garance Burke, Martha Mendoza, Nomaan Merchant, Matt Sedensky and Julie Watson, “Torn Apart: Immigration in the Era of Trump”

Feature writing, single story or series

28 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

• Winners: Sharon Cohen, David Goldman and Mary Hudetz, “Death and Disappearance in Indian Country” • Honorable mention: Sharon Cohen and David Goldman, “Women Behind Bars”

State news reporting

• Winners: Christina Cassidy and Frank Bajak, “Election Security” • Honorable mention: Julie Carr Smyth, Kantele Franko and Ohio Staff, “Online Charter School Investigation”

John Winn and Margo C. Miller Award for excellence by a staffer 30 years old or younger • Winners: Dake Kang and Yanan Wang, “China” • Honorable mention: Krysta Fauria, “Los Angeles Bureau Video Coverage”

Global sports accountability

• Winner: Ohio Staff, for its reporting on Ohio State team doctor Richard Strauss

Use of video

• Winner: Mstyslav Chernov, “Ukrainian Youth Camp” • Honorable mention: Bram Janssen, “Sahara Missing”

Digital storytelling

• Winners: Nat Castañeda, Bram Janssen and Lori Hinnant, “The Missing” • Honorable mention: Khaled Kazziha and video team in Zimbabwe, “Livestream of Zimbabwe’s Deadly Post-Election Violence”

News photography --- single shot

• Winner: Rebecca Blackwell, “Crossing Under” • Honorable mention: Andrew Harnik, “The Clap”

News photography --- story or series

• Winners: Khalil Hamra, Adel Hana, Ariel Schalit, Felipe Dana, Oded Balilty, “Gaza on the Edge” • Honorable mention: Rodrigo Abd, “A Caravan” and Dar Yasin, “Kashmir Conflict”

Feature photography --- single shot

• Winner: Ben Curtis, “Scavenger” • Honorable mention: Rodrigo Abd, “Exhausted” and Altaf Qadri, “Lifting Her Veil”

Feature photography --- story or series

• Winner: Rodrigo Abd, “Dangerous Dives” • Honorable mention: Bernat Armangue, “Running of the Wine Horses” and Altaf Qadri, “India: Looking for Hope”

APME NEWS

member

APME recognizes contributions to the AP photo report through Showcase Photo of the Month Award. The competition is judged by AP and member photo editors.

The monthly winners are displayed at the annual conference and a Showcase Photo of the Year Award is presented.

showcase

February

March

AP Photo/Chattanooga Times Free Press People stand by their vehicles to honor Chattanooga Police officer Nicholas Galinger as his procession passes along East Brainerd Road in Chattanooga, Tenn. Galinger, 38, was killed when he was struck by a vehicle while inspecting a manhole cover.

AP Photo/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Amy Drennen, right, of Lordstown, Ohio, receives a hug from Pam Clark in front of the General Motors assembly plant, in Lordstown, Ohio. It was the last day of the plant’s Chevrolet Cruze production, a move that will cut nearly 1,700 hourly jobs and idle the plant.

Robin Rudd

Steph Chambers

April

May

AP Photo/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Pittsburgh Penguins’ Patric Hornqvist and Evgeni Malkin sandwich New York Islanders right wing Leo Komarov in Game 2 of an NHL hockey first-round playoff series in Uniondale, N.Y.

AP Photo/Tulsa World Samantha Karnes and her son Anthony Pickett, 3, walk up to their neighbor’s mobile home to check on him as floodwater from the Arkansas River approaches at the Riverside Mobile Home Park in Muskogee, Okla.

Peter Diana

Mike Simons

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

29

APME NEWS

NewsTrain rolls on after 16 years of regional training workshops

Local news leaders lay out priorities, and NewsTrain delivers the goods

N

By Laura Sellers-Earl and Linda Austin

ewsTrain came barreling out of the station in 2004 fueled by a $1 million Knight Foundation grant. In its first three years, NewsTrain held 40 workshops and trained about 4,500 editors, according to its first project manager, Lillian Swanson.

NewsTrain grew out of a 2002 Knight study in which journalists cited the lack of training as their top source of dissatisfaction on the job.

Swanson and APME Projects Director Carol Nunnelley spent 2003 designing the program and holding pilot workshops, which, to this day, remain based on interactive learning, although the topics have changed with the times.

They were assisted by Elaine Kramer, who also directed some of the workshops, Knight’s Eric Newton, the APME Board of Directors and Program Assistant Teresa Cooper, “who somehow kept track of the hundreds of details required to offer seamless workshops that moved from city to city,” Swanson said.

Over the years, other foundations have added their funding voice to ensure NewsTrain reaches the broadest audiences across North America.

When asked about NewsTrain’s staying power, Swanson said it keeps going “because frontline editors — and actually all journalists

PHOTOS BY HATCH VISUALS

Attendees at the NewsTrain workshop in Denton, Texas

— are hungry for professional development that will help them grow and be more effective in their work. NewsTrain’s great advantage is that it goes to where the journalists are and offers a sharply focused, well-executed program that meets editors’ needs. It is cost-effective for the newsrooms and requires less time away from the job because the editors are close to home.”

After Swanson returned to daily journalism in 2006, Nunnelley, Kramer and Cooper ran the engine, with Kramer, Bobbie Jo Buel and Cooper taking over when Nunnelley left in 2009.

In 2011, Michael Roberts, who was involved with NewsTrain from the beginning as a frequent speaker, took over the controls. The former deputy managing editor for staff development at The Arizona Republic notes that expanding the original target audience of frontline editors to include more reporters, students and educators has helped the program sustain its mission.

“The idea of assessing local needs was crucial,” Roberts said about NewsTrain’s long track record. “Each session needed concrete learning objectives that could be presented and practiced in the allotted time. Training had to be linked to specific outcomes back in the newsroom.”

In 2014, Roberts handed the keys to Linda Austin, former executive director of Arizona State University’s Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and a former top editor in three newsrooms. Austin continues the strong NewsTrain leadership >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

30 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

benefits of NewsTrain to more journalists, even globally.”

tradition and is also building an innovative, mobile training program.

This year, Laura Sellers — former APME president, newspaper editor and digital director — transitions from NewsTrain program assistant to share director duties with Austin.

As APME and the American Society of News Editors merge into the News Leaders Association, NewsTrain will continue to bring customized regional training in the skills that journalists need most. Learn more at bit.ly/NewsTrain.

Laura Sellers and Linda Austin are the project co-directors of NewsTrain. Contact Sellers at lsellers.newstrain@gmail.com or @lsellersearl, and Austin at laustin.newstrain@gmail.com or @LindaAustin_.

NewsTrain by the numbers

“

Study finds mobile microlearning effective, popular

n Year of inception: 2003 n Workshops: 93 n Journalists trained: more than 7,500 n States visited: 50 n Provinces visited: 3 n Typical rating for sessions, with 5 as highly useful and effective: 4.5 n Most popular skills taught currently: 4 (mobile, data, video, social) n Early-bird registration: $75

What journalists say about NewsTrain

For about two years, NewsTrain Project Co-director Linda Austin “Ya’ll ARE AWESOME. I didn’t want to leave the lectures to use the has been researching how to expand NewsTrain’s bathroom because they were so good.” –---- Chase reach via bite-size lessons delivered by smartphone.

Budnieski, student, Arizona State University’s “NewsTrain’s inThe idea is to overcome the biggest obstacle to Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communitraining for journalists — lack of time — by providperson workshops cation, Phoenix, 2018 ing learning in five-minute chunks that can be are a proven way to “Loved my time here. I highly recommend this consumed while on public transit or waiting in line. for every newsroom.” –-- Jeffrey Schmucker, assistant In the past decade, mobile microlearning has taken reach hundreds of city editor, The Blade in Toledo, Muncie, Indiana, off in other industries but not yet in journalism. journalists a year 2018 Think Babbel for language learning.

Funded by a Reynolds Journalism Institute with high-quality, “My staff members who attended the Greenville Fellowship from the University of Missouri, she NewsTrain session RAVED about how useful and affordable training, informative it was. They came back fired up and developed the first of these mobile-microlearning courses for digital journalism: The 5 C’s of Writing and those will brimming with ideas we could implement in our News for Mobile Audiences. newsroom. One of them crafted a training session continue, with the To study its effectiveness, 35 journalists completfor our newsroom based on the NewsTrain info. So ed the course under the auspices of the Information … bravo and thank you!” –---- Alison Gerber, Chattasupport of the Experience Lab at the University of Missouri. All of nooga Times Free Press editor and APME treasurer, them said they would recommend the course to board and other Greenville, South Carolina, 2018 other journalists interested in the subject. In generous donors.”

“This is the best training program I’ve attended in addition: 10 years.” –-- Lynda Edwards, Knoxville News Sentinel • 80 percent of the learners obtained higher test LINDA AUSTIN, NewsTrain reporter, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 2016 scores after completing the course, and that increase project co-director in scores was statistically significant.

“Keep this up! This is one of the best training • 89 percent said they had learned new things. opportunities available for professionals, faculty and • 86 percent said they found it convenient to fit the short lessons students.” –-- Greg Pitts, director of the School of Journalism, Middle into their daily routine.

Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 2016 • 76 percent said the course was fun. lll • After the course, learners reported that their confidence level in NewsTrain brings its affordable digital workshops writing headlines and news stories for mobile had increased. to Milwaukee, Austin and Albuquerque in fall 2019 Next steps: Working with Mizzou’s Trulaske College of Business, Milwaukee, Austin and Albuquerque will experience NewsTrain’s Austin will complete a pricing study for a library of mobile-microlecutting-edge, affordable, digital training in fall 2019. arning courses in digital journalism. That information will go into Here are the dates and hosts for the workshops, which each have developing a budget with which to approach potential funders about an early-bird rate of $75 to attend: creating the library.

• Milwaukee, on Sept. 27, hosted by the Milwaukee Journal “NewsTrain’s in-person workshops are a proven way to reach Sentinel; hundreds of journalists a year with high-quality, affordable training, • Austin, on Oct. 18-19, hosted by GateHouse Media LLC and the and those will continue, with the support of the board and other Austin American-Statesman; and generous donors,” Austin said. >> CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE “The mobile-microlearning courses are designed to extend the

“

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

31

APME NEWS

>> FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

• Albuquerque, on October 25-26, hosted by the University of New Mexico in conjunction with the New Mexico Press Association.

To be notified when agendas and trainers are set for these workshops, please provide an email at bit.ly/NT2018-19.

The sites were selected from applications by committees of local journalists throughout the United States. These successful committees will conduct an assessment of the needs in their newsrooms to determine which skills will be taught at the workshops.

NewsTrain’s first workshop of 2019 was April 11-12 in Denver, hosted by Colorado State University in conjunction with the Colorado Press Association Convention.

Help support NewsTrain Since 2003, APME’s NewsTrain has trained more than 7,500 journalists at 93 workshops across the United States and Canada. To keep the registration affordable at $75 for early birds, APME relies on donors, such as The Associated Press, APME past and present board members, GateHouse Media LLC and the APME, Park, Newhouse, Gannett and Sigma Delta Chi foundations. To join them in supporting NewsTrain, please visit bit.ly/NewsTraindonation. n

Screenshots from NewsTrain’s mobile microlearning course

32 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

APME NEWS

By Paula Froke AP Stylebook Editor

AP Stylebook minute

The birth of AP Stylebook is a story of determination and cooperation

T

he Stylebook Minute’s place in this magazine is fitting, because APME played a central role in the creation of the first Associated Press Stylebook more than 65 years ago. In my dual role as APME executive director and Stylebook editor, I take particular pleasure in sharing some details of the Stylebook’s founding moments.

APME members sought an AP Stylebook at their 1952 convention. The goal: a standard to guide the TTS punchers and ensure a degree of consistency from newspaper to newspaper. We’ve come a long way since those TTS days, and our goals are a bit loftier now. But consistency, accuracy and fairness remain paramount.

Just how to accomplish that goal was as hard then as it is now. The stylebook committee explained in the 1953 Red Book: “We found, as soon as we got into the business, that there was no such thing as a generally accepted style. We found confusion and inconsistency when we turned to what we had assumed would be the authorities.

“Textbooks, dictionaries and, most of all, newspaper style books differed not only with each other but too often with themselves. A swift survey indicated that not a few of our decisions would have to be arbitrary. We can, in all cases, quote authority for the decisions we made, but there are times when equally eminent authority can be quoted to the contrary.”

The APME committee, working with AP editors, sent a wire advisory seeking suggestions from members. The many responses, along with textbooks, dictionaries and more than 100 newspaper stylebooks, resulted in a rough draft. Then came the hard decisions.

The 1953 Red Book quoted this from the “voluminous correspondence” among committee members: “Now for the word week end, weekend, week-end. It’s a noun, adjective and verb. Bill favors spelling it the same for all three.

Webster gives the noun `week end’ (though he has week-day) and hyphenates both verb and adjective. I cannot find it in the Government Printing Office style book; GPO does, however, say `Current language trends point definitively to closing up words which, through frequent use, have become associated in the reader’s mind with units of thought.’ In other words, how lost was my weekend? What do you think?”

The committee voted unanimously for weekend at all times.

The Stylebook was updated and reissued several times over the next two decades, but always within its original length of 50 to 60 pages. In the mid-1970s, AP’s then-CEO Lou Boccardi had bigger aspirations: The book should cover not just grammar and usage, but also serve as a reference manual in these days long before the internet. The 1977 Stylebook ----- which, by the way, was the one I

memorized as a college journalist and then as an AP intern in 1980 ----- debuted at 280 pages.

“It has grown from an unobtrusive little booklet in a plain brown cover to a big, bossy blue book that overwhelms,” Ernest J. Cutts of the Charleston (South Carolina) Evening Post told the 1977 APME convention. “The former was so small it was easily ignored. The latter is so immense it scares the hell out of you.”

What would Cutts think of the 600-plus pages we produce these days?!

The 2019 book is the third for which I’ve been lead editor. This year we added a lengthy section on race-related coverage, including encouragement for journalists “to think broadly about racial issues before having to make decisions on specific situations and stories.”

We also added a chapter about covering health and science, two topics of ever-increasing reader interest.

We reflected common usage by saying the word data usually should be treated as singular; changed outdated guidance on split verbs; and added or revised guidance on words and topics as varied as casualties, suspect, vaping, cryptocurrency, suicide, clauses of the constitution, and headlines.

Oh, and let’s not forget %. Yes, I know that some of you love our change from percent to %. Some of you hate it. (See the fifth paragraph above.) Some of you just need some time to get used to it.

Here is a fun tidbit: The earliest APME Red Books included frequent use of the % sign, including in a readability study by noted expert Rudolf Flesch. At some point, and as late as 1970, the Stylebook favored per cent, two words, reflecting common usage.

Then came the 1977 overhaul. Quoting again from Ernest Cutt’s speech to the APME convention: “Was the AP itching to change for the sake of change, you may ask.

Why else, after preaching separation of `per cent’ into two words for seven years, does the ’77 book order it written `percent,’ one word?”

Which brings us back to the present, when everything old is new again. No, we didn’t change for the sake of change (believe me, I don’t need that kind of headache). Instead, we again aim to reflect common usage and readability. So we now use %, not percent and definitely not per cent.

Next up: our numbers guidance. You’ll be hearing from me as we seek your input over the course of 2019. In this, and in all our work as we merge to become the News Leaders Association, let’s remember the wisdom of the 1953 Stylebook’s introduction: “The end result of extensive exploration and consultation in this work necessarily represents many compromises between conflicting points of view. ... The membership has repeatedly demonstrated its awareness and appreciation of the necessity of resolving conflicts in differing points of view. For this we are most grateful.” n

SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

33

APME NEWS

2019

LEADERSHIP Officers

President: Angie Muhs, former editor, State Journal-Register, Springfield, Illinois, @amuhs Vice President: Michael Days, VP for Diversity and Inclusion, Philadelphia Media Network, @mikedays Secretary: Mark Baldwin, Executive Editor, Rockford (Ill.) Register Star, @MarkFBaldwin Treasurer: Alison Gerber, Editor, Chattanooga Times Free Press, Tennessee, @aligerb

Executive Committee

(officers above plus) Past President: Jim Simon, Managing Editor, Honolulu Civil Beat, @jsimon88 APME Executive Director: Paula Froke, The Associated Press, New York @PaulaFroke AP Ex-Officio: Sally Buzbee, Executive Editor and Senior Vice President, The Associated Press, New York, @SallyBuzbee AP Ex-Officio: Sarah Nordgren, Deputy Managing Editor, The Associated Press, New York, @sarahnordgren Conference Co-Chair: Dennis Anderson, Executive Editor, Peoria (Ill.) Journal Star, @dennisedit Conference Co-Chair: Sally Stapleton, Global Editor, Religion, The Associated Press, New York, @sestapleton Marketing/Membership Co-Chair: Summer Moore, Digital Project Manager, GateHouse Media, Austin, Texas @summerbmoore Marketing/Membership Co-Chair: Juli Metzger, Associate Lecturer, Department of Journalism, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, @julimetzger

Directors

Ronnie Agnew, Executive Director, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, @ronagnew Michael Anastasi, Executive Editor and Vice President, The Tennessean, @ma_anastasi Tom Arviso, Publisher, Navajo Times, Window Rock, Arizona, @ArvisoTom Kathy Best, Director, Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park Anne Brennan, Editor in Chief, The MetroWest Daily News and The Milford Daily News in Massachusetts, @AnneBrennanCCT Matt Christensen, Executive Editor, Quad City Times, Davenport, Iowa, @TimesNewsEditor

34 SEPTEMBER 2019

APME NEWS

APME board Sandra Clark, Vice President for News and Civic Dialogue, WHYY, Philadelphia, @SandraSWClark Kurt Franck, President/Executive Editor/Vice-President, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio, @KGFranck_Blade Katrice Hardy, Executive Editor and Southeast Regional Editor, The Greenville (S.C.) News and GreenvilleOnline.com, @kkatgurll1 Thomas Koetting, Deputy Managing Editor, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, @tkoetting Juli Metzger, Associate Lecturer, Department of Journalism, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, @julimetzger Lane Michaelsen, Group News Director, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Hunt Valley, MD, @lanetv Autumn Phillips, Managing Editor, The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C., @AutumnEdit George Rodrigue, Editor, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, @gprodrigue3

APME News Staff

Editor: Andrew Oppmann, Vice President and Adjunct Professor of Journalism, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, @aoppmann Designer: Steve Massie, Design Director, Automotive News, Detroit, Michigan Staff Writer: Autumn Phillips, Managing Editor, The Post and Courier, Charleston, S.C., @AutumnEdit

Our communication vehicles n www.apme.com n www.facebook.com/APMEnews n www.twitter.com/APME n www.facebook.com/NewsTrain n https://twitter.com/NewsTrain and, n APME update: www.apme.com/?page=Newsletters