Who impacts news more than CNN, NYT, Yahoo, etc? AP exec who fired reporter over Leahy.

[madfloridian]

This article from Wired caught my eye because it mentions the firing of Vermont's Chris Graff as the AP Bureau chief in Vermont because of Patrick Leahy and Howard Dean. More on that below, but here is an article about Kathleen Carroll, the "AP's New Image."

Getting Wired: Kathleen Carroll and AP's New Image


Kathleen Carroll

As executive editor of The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization, Carroll's decisions arguably have more impact on more news reporting than editors of The New York Times, producers at CNN, or the online newsies at Yahoo. And since Carroll took over the top spot in 2002, becoming the first woman at the helm, she has made her mark by instituting a string of changes in AP operations that are among the most significant in the news cooperative's 161-year history. From expanding online services to increasing staff incentives, she has taken one of the oldest news institutions and re-energized it to compete in the growing multimedia age, all the while keeping its old-fashioned news standards intact.

....."For some staffers, however, AP's changing approach may be too much, too fast. "People are being asked to do more with less, and resources around the country are getting very tight," says Tony Winton, a Miami-based broadcast reporter and president of the News Media Guild, which represents about 1,600 AP staffers. "It is almost like it is happening too fast; you are trying to walk out the door before you open it."

Winton notes a buyout last year that ended with the departure of about 100 technical staffers. He also says a number of state bureaus have lost people in posts that remain unfilled: "The company has told us it will not hurt journalistic standards, but we are concerned." AP also took some heat in February when it ended its book review package. The news cooperative said at the time the move was part of a features reorganization, but it drew complaints from a handful of publishers and editors.

Then there's the dispute over Chris Graff, the former AP Vermont bureau chief who was fired last year after 27 years as an AP employee. He lost his job after he distributed a column on open government by Sen. Patrick Leahy and allowed a staffer to contribute to a 2003 book about Howard Dean. Carroll has continually declined to comment on the firing, which raised interest when numerous Vermont newspaper editors and politicians complained to AP and urged that Graff be rehired. (He never was, and currently works at an insurance company.)

Amd here's part of the letter that the AP released about Chris Graff's firing.

AP: Graff fired for Leahy op-ed column, Howard Dean book (2003)

MONTPELIER — In a rare move, the Associated Press agreed today to release the termination letter it handed to Vermont bureau chief Chris Graff in late March.

In the March 20 letter, AP said it was firing Graff for running an op-ed on March 8 by an elected official, and for allowing an AP reporter to write a chapter in a 2003 book about Howard Dean, then an aspiring presidential candidate.

“I hope the release of the letter puts to rest any speculation that other factors may have been involved,” Graff told the Guardian."

Graff was not fired until 2006. He had always covered Dean's VT career, but the AP kept him from covering Dean's campaign because someome else wrote a chapter in a book about Dean written by reporters from VT.

Chris Graff has a book out now called Dateline Vermont. I guess since he was already fired, he felt free to put Governor Dean on the cover with him.

Dateline Vermont

[valerief]

1. And the big oil companies own Carroll. nt

[madfloridian]

2. Not sure where you got that. From the article?

?

[valerief]

8. Big money owns industry. Big money owns the media, because the media

presents the message for industry. Big money has the money to control the media.

[madfloridian]

9. Well, when you put it that way...

sounds very logical to me.

:hi:

[peacetalksforall]

3. Says plenty about AP.

[madfloridian]

4. Yes, because the book was not meant to praise Dean.

That's what's so odd about it. The chapter by the guy that in part got Graff fired was not really that pro-Dean. It was an excellent book by VT reporters and journalists, but it was not especially favorable to Dean. And I think Leahy's column was on the Sunshine Day event that happens yearly in all the media about keeping government open.

[malaise]

5. Isn't she a Rethug hack?

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=Kathleen+Carroll++and+Republican+party&btnG=Google+Search

[madfloridian]

6. Interesting...I had checked her out but not with the word Republican.

Will read some of those articles. Thanks.

:hi:

[madfloridian]

7. I forgot that AP was the sole source of raw vote totals in 2004. Interesting.

I had known this but forgotten it. They held a lot of power in what was released.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/102304Landes/102304landes.html

October 23, 2004—The Associated Press (AP) will be the sole source of raw vote totals for the major news broadcasters on Election Night. However, AP spokesmen Jack Stokes and John Jones refused to explain to this journalist how the AP will receive that information. They refused to confirm or deny that the AP will receive direct feed from voting machines and central vote tabulating computers across the country. But, circumstantial evidence suggests that is exactly what will happen.

And what can be downloaded can also be uploaded. Computer experts say that signals can travel both to and from computerized voting machines through wireless technology, modems, and even simple electricity. Computer scientists have long warned that computer voting is an invitation to vote fraud and system failure. An examination of Diebold election software by several computer scientists, including Dr. Avi Rubin and his staff, proved that secret backdoors can be built into computer programs that allow votes to be easily manipulated without detection.

...."Who is the AP? The Associated Press was founded in 1848. It is a not-for-profit news cooperative, some would say ‘monopoly,’ that rakes in about $500 million dollars a year. The AP is owned by its 1,500 U.S. daily newspaper members. Their board of directors is elected by voting ‘bonds.’ However, it is not clear who controls the bonds. AP spokespeople would not give out information on who sits on their board, however AP leadership appears quite conservative.

Burl Osborne, chairman of the AP board of directors, is also publisher emeritus of the conservative The Dallas Morning News, a newspaper that endorsed George W. Bush in the last election. Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor of AP, was a reporter at The Dallas Morning News before joining AP. Carroll is also on the Associated Press Managing Editors (APME)’s 7-member executive committee. The APME "works in partnership with AP to improve the wire service's performance," according to their website. APME vice president, Deanna Sands, is managing editor of the ultra conservative Omaha World Herald newspaper, whose parent company owns the largest voting machine company in the nation, Election Systems and Software (ES&S)."

All just supposing, I guess. But that is a lot of power for one group to have.

[madfloridian]

10. More of the letter about why Graff was fired over Leahy.

This is just terrible. No good reason for it.

Leahy said the termination letter made AP's decision more difficult to understand.

“The ironies of censoring discussion of the public’s right to know -- during Sunshine Week, to boot -- have already been noted by others," he said in a written statement. “But it must also be noted that AP itself takes an advocacy position each year during Sunshine Week. AP bureaus across the country distribute and also produce materials in which these issues are examined. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that we recently held, a prominent AP witness testified – and forcefully -- in support of the public’s right to know and of the bipartisan FOIA reform bills that I have authored and introduced in the Senate with one of the Senate’s most conservative Republican members."

Leahy then noted that it was the American Society of Newspaper Editors who asked him to pen a column for Sunshine Week, which they were going to distribute to newspapers around the country.

http://www.vermontguardian.com/local/052006/GraffLetter.shtml

Chris Graff was fired for that. Nothing could be done. The decision was made. This sure seems like a really big political play to me.

[EFerrari]

11. 'Way back in 2004, I traced the editorial board to the Omaha World Herald

and ES&S. But I can't reproduce the lineage of Authorized Propaganda for you tonight and it's likely not that simple or neat.

We have seen the AP spin like tops for BushCo so long, looking away is probably good for your neck. :shrug: