Five years ago today, I quit my job at The Associated Press. After 23 years of assignments from California to New York, I turned in the keys to my company car, said farewell to my staff and walked to the train station in Trenton for a long ride home. Over the next few days, nearly 100 of my former AP colleagues will be walking out of bureaus for the last time as they take early retirement. I write this post in their honor, for they are some of the finest — and certainly some of the most unheralded — journalists in the world.
Among them are people like Brendan Riley, who for the past 37 years has served the people of Nevada faithfully and fairly as correspondent at the capitol in Carson City. And there’s Andy Lippman, who as chief of bureau in Los Angeles directed some of the biggest stories of modern times. They and scores of others depart the AP as it and many other old-line news organizations struggle to find their way in the Internet era.
While well known in regional or occasionally in some national journalism circles, AP reporters and editors generally don’t get the wide recognition that TV anchors or big-time newspaper columnists receive. While the AP news report remains one of the foundations of the daily efforts of most American news organizations, few people outside the AP give its employees much credit. I still remember a left-hand compliment one of my sports writers received from a newspaper columnist, who said she was impressed with his writing “for a wire service guy.”
The AP over the past few years has not endeared itself to bloggers and other advocates of Everything Should Be Free on the Internet. I wrestled with some of those issues myself as San Francisco bureau chief during the dot-com boom of the 90s and at corporate headquarters in New York early in this decade. I won’t judge recent policies, but I marvel at the cheek of some of AP’s critics who ignore the news service’s staggering contributions to the daily flow of news and information around the world. They care not a whit about the cost – financial or personal – incurred in gathering it. Over the years, it seemed to me that AP’s harshest critics were often those who flunked the AP writing test or otherwise didn’t get hired.
But this post is a tribute, not a rant. Above is a photo of my lone remaining AP ball cap. It sits atop the shell of an AP teletype machine that once delivered the sports wire to the Racine (Wis.) Journal-Times at 66 words a minute. The cap and teletype are artifacts from earlier times in journalism and my career. To me they represent the best of what AP stands for: fast, accurate, unbiased reporting of the news of the day.
To all my ex-colleagues departing the AP, I tip my cap to you.
The Ball Caps Blog 
Brendan Riley? Andy Lippman? Do you have a list of all the folks who are leaving?
I’m so sad that experience and institutional memory don’t mean a whole lot to the A&P.
Thanks for hiring me, though, all those years ago!
Well said. You ought to do journalism for a living.
Nice piece, Dan, and well put.
Nice, Dan. Cheers, Tim
Well said. The AP writers and photographers and editors set the standards, and the pace, for quality journalism for most of my 42 years in the field. They provided history, on the run, and did it well all over the world. I always wondered what would have happened if the phone call I got from the Atlanta bureau in 1965 had come one week before I accepted a job at the Herald.
Beautiful piece Dan.
Than ks for the tip of the cap, Dan. I wore a vintage AP cap out the door last Monday on my last day. I’ll sure miss that place.
Nice post, Dan. A lot of people I miss, from Ruth the receptionist at HQ to … well, a whole bunch of folks.
Kim and anyone else interested, I have posted a list of all 2009 AP departures at my posterous:
http://mikemokr.posterous.com/associated-press-departures-2009
whoops, I meant Rose at the reception desk but also miss her former colleague Ruth, R.I.P.
A great tribute from a great AP friend. Let’s just hope the foundation can hold for another 160 years or so.
Mike: Who is Ruth????????
Susan — I’m sorry, I’m confusing four-letter names starting with R … I meant Rita, a very sweet person who worked at 50 Rock for a number of years. I’m not remembering now if she passed away before or after the HQ move.
Andrew Lippman, Los Angeles Administration
Ann E Levin, New York City News
Here is the list:
Anthony Beyrouty, Billing
Arlene Sposato, Telecommunications
Arthur H Rotstein, Tucson News
Audrey Woods, Europ/Africa Desk
Brendan P Riley, Carson City News
Brian Horton, Sports Multimedia
Brian O’Hanlon, National Desk
Bruce A Desilva, Global Training
Cameron R Bloch, Headquarters Photo Desk
Carl H Niederman, International Desk – News
Carl L Manning, Topeka News
Daniel H Beegan, Boston News
David Briscoe, Honolulu News
David E Tirrell-Wysocki, Concord News
David M Goldberg, Sports
David Miessler, Cranbury Global Network Operations Ctr
Dennis Neysmith, Payroll
Don Deibler, Assessments
Donald Evans, Raleigh Technology
Estes Thompson, Raleigh News
Francis Limbach, Broadcast On Air
Francis Quinn, Augusta News
Garry Mitchell, Mobile News
Gary Clark, Atlanta Administration
Gary Koehler, Mail Room
Gerald Labelle, International Desk – Enterprise
Gonzalo Pineiro, Photos
Gordon Mcfarland, Omaha Technology
Hernan Eduardo Gallardo, Santiago News
Ivan Coston, Technology Operations
Jagadish Ghanta, Financial Applications
James Faulkner, Cranbury Global Network Operations Ctr
James Carlson, Milwaukee News
James Cour, Seattle News
James Gaines, Market Tables
Jerome Harkavy, Portland (ME) News
John Crowley, Sales Division One
John Lumpkin, Newspapers & Community Marketing
John Shurr, Columbia (SC) Administration
John A Gibbons, Asset Control
Joseph Frazier, Portland (OR) News
Joseph Magruder, Concord News
Kenneth Mellgren, Americas Marketing Communications
Larry Heinzerling, International Desk – N America Dsk & Adm
Lawrence Brown, Broadcast News Wires
Leonard Iwanski, Helena News
Linda Sargent (Franklin), Dallas News
Lindel Hutson, Oklahoma City Administration
Madge Stager, Domestic Photo Administration
Malcolm Johnson, Lansing News
Mario Szichman, World Spanish Desk – New York
Marvin Kropko, Cleveland News
Marvin Weydert, News Production
Michael Derer, Newark Photos
Michael Harris, Sports
Nestor Ikeda, Washington News – Spanish
Norman Van Anden, Washington Broadcast
Paul Stevens, Central Bureau
Pradeep Mody, Warehouse
Rachel Ambrose, Los Angeles News
Richard Lawyer, Philadelphia News
Richard Pyle, New York City News
Robert A Feldman, TV Station Sales
Robert Child, Hartford Photos
Robert Hopper, Broadcast News Wires
Roger Petterson, National Desk
Roger Wallace, Denver Technology
Ronald Jenkins, Oklahoma City News
Ronald A Harrist, Jackson News
Rose Gangemi, Switchboard
Sam Heiman, Headquarters Photo Desk
Samuel Maull, New York City News
Stephen Feica, Hartford News
Stephen Hattley, Phoenix News
Steven Herman, Indianapolis News
Susan Johnson, Raleigh Administration
Susan Gallagher, Helena News
Suzanne Vlamis, Images Historical Research
Terry Stover, Kansas City News
Thomas Jory, Election Systems
Thomas Watson, Louisville News
Vladimir Kremerov, Shared Applications
Walter Putnam, Atlanta News
Walter Mosby, Images Indexing
Wilfred Kolin, Images Scanning
William Bergstrom, Philadelphia News
William Haber, New Orleans Photos
William Sautter, Broadcast News Wires
William Vander Haar, Washington Technology
Woodrow Baird, Memphis News
Nice piece, Dan…And I like your site. Stirs up memories and a lot of familiar names…
A lovely piece, Dan. It’s hard for me to imagine the AP without Lippman, Stevens, Horton, Lumpkin, Pyle, Jory and so many others.
Dan
Just caught up with yr blog. Well said, sir, and some of the comments are pretty good, too. Its nice to know some people actually get it.
Richard
I was one of the 100 who left AP on 7/27/2009. Now doing my personal photography projects. I was invited to do a one-woman photography exhibit by Roosevelt Island Historical Society on my early B/W New York photos of former Welfare Island. Debuts as “Welfare Island – A Spirit of Place Past” Dec.19th to Jan. 2010. Come.
Suzanne, good luck with the show. I’d come if I were in town.
Suzanne, I grew up in Queens and as a teenager once rode out to Roosevelt Island on my bicycle, over that little bridge from Long Island City. It was Memorial Day and two things stand out in my memory: I caught my first striped bass ever, casting into the East River; and I watched the locals play their annual holiday softball game in the middle of the island’s Main Street.
Would love to catch that show if I’m in NYC. Where?
p.s. striking how the community had such a small-town feel while just about literally in the shadow of midtown Manhattan.