Posts tagged associated press

Thirty years ago today, former President Ronald Reagan was shot by would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. on what happened to be Ron Edmonds’s second day as a photographer for the Associated Press. The video above has Edmonds and former secret service agent Danny Spriggs discuss the events of that nearly-tragic day.

Edmonds, who won the Pulitzer Prize for the photos, comments on what it was like to be a photojournalist in the old days:

Today we are fortunate. We make a picture, we can immediately look at the back and — and sort through it to see if we’ve got it or not. In those days you had to wait, you know — you did the best you could with the abilities that you’ve got and you waited to see.

Elsewhere today, Time LightBox spoke with Edmonds about what it was like being so young and photographing something so important. 

Initially, Edmonds was convinced he had upset his employers because he had failed to get a picture of Hinckley. When Edmonds returned to the office, he was told to call the head of the AP, and he assumed the worst. On only the second day of his six-month probation as a new hire, he feared he would be let go. Instead he was told, “You nailed it, kid,” and “We’re lifting your probation — we’re going to keep you.”

Central Pyongyang At Dusk The New York Times’ Lens blog profiles David Guttenfelder, an AP photographer who is the only Westerner able to shoot in North Korea on a regular basis. Guttenfelder’s work is a part of “Window on North Korea,” a photography exhibit taking place in New York City that places images by AP photographers next to those taken by Korea State Media (KCNA) photographers. Via the New York Times: [The show] has some of the best of the North Korea images by Mr. Guttenfelder and his A.P. colleagues. But the photos by the KCNA are most telling. They are highly idealized images: everyone is well fed, and smiling. The workers are heroic and the leaders have a heavenly glow.  There are no traces of the hunger, hardships and repression that exist in North Korea. They may be propaganda but they do provide insight into how the North Korean government officials want — and need — their people to see their country. A slideshow of images from the exhibit is available at the Lens blog. Image: Central Pyongyang At Dusk by David Guttenfelder, AP. Via the New York Times.

Central Pyongyang At Dusk

The New York Times’ Lens blog profiles David Guttenfelder, an AP photographer who is the only Westerner able to shoot in North Korea on a regular basis.

Guttenfelder’s work is a part of “Window on North Korea,” a photography exhibit taking place in New York City that places images by AP photographers next to those taken by Korea State Media (KCNA) photographers.

Via the New York Times:

[The show] has some of the best of the North Korea images by Mr. Guttenfelder and his A.P. colleagues.

But the photos by the KCNA are most telling. They are highly idealized images: everyone is well fed, and smiling. The workers are heroic and the leaders have a heavenly glow.  There are no traces of the hunger, hardships and repression that exist in North Korea. They may be propaganda but they do provide insight into how the North Korean government officials want — and need — their people to see their country.

A slideshow of images from the exhibit is available at the Lens blog.

Image: Central Pyongyang At Dusk by David Guttenfelder, AP. Via the New York Times.

AP: Next Stop, North Korea The AP opens first Western news bureau in North Korea. Via the Associated Press: The Associated Press opened its newest bureau here Monday, becoming the first international news organization with a full-time presence to cover news from North Korea in words, pictures and video. In a ceremony that came less than a month after the death of longtime ruler Kim Jong Il and capped nearly a year of discussions, AP President and CEO Tom Curley and a delegation of top AP editors inaugurated the office, situated inside the headquarters of the state-run Korean Central News Agency in downtown Pyongyang… …The bureau puts AP in a position to document the people, places and politics of North Korea across all media platforms at a critical moment in its history, with Kim’s death and the ascension of his young son as the country’s new leader, Curley said in remarks prepared for the opening. “Beyond this door lies a path to vastly larger understanding and cultural enrichment for millions around the world,” Curley said. “Regardless of whether you were born in Pyongyang or Pennsylvania, you are aware of the bridge being created today.” Curley said the Pyongyang bureau will operate under the same standards and practices as AP bureaus worldwide. “Everyone at The Associated Press takes his or her responsibilities of a free and fair press with utmost seriousness,” he said. “We pledge to do our best to reflect accurately the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as well as what they do and say.” Image: Associated Press President Tom Curley, left, and Korean Central News Agency President Kim Pyong Ho hang the Associated Press Pyongyang sign on the door to open a new AP bureau in Pyongyang, North Korea on Monday Jan. 16, 2012. Via the AP.

AP: Next Stop, North Korea

The AP opens first Western news bureau in North Korea.

Via the Associated Press:

The Associated Press opened its newest bureau here Monday, becoming the first international news organization with a full-time presence to cover news from North Korea in words, pictures and video.

In a ceremony that came less than a month after the death of longtime ruler Kim Jong Il and capped nearly a year of discussions, AP President and CEO Tom Curley and a delegation of top AP editors inaugurated the office, situated inside the headquarters of the state-run Korean Central News Agency in downtown Pyongyang…

…The bureau puts AP in a position to document the people, places and politics of North Korea across all media platforms at a critical moment in its history, with Kim’s death and the ascension of his young son as the country’s new leader, Curley said in remarks prepared for the opening.

“Beyond this door lies a path to vastly larger understanding and cultural enrichment for millions around the world,” Curley said. “Regardless of whether you were born in Pyongyang or Pennsylvania, you are aware of the bridge being created today.”

Curley said the Pyongyang bureau will operate under the same standards and practices as AP bureaus worldwide.

“Everyone at The Associated Press takes his or her responsibilities of a free and fair press with utmost seriousness,” he said. “We pledge to do our best to reflect accurately the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as well as what they do and say.”

Image: Associated Press President Tom Curley, left, and Korean Central News Agency President Kim Pyong Ho hang the Associated Press Pyongyang sign on the door to open a new AP bureau in Pyongyang, North Korea on Monday Jan. 16, 2012. Via the AP.

Doing News Right? The AP's New Licensing Venture

The Associated Press, along with 28 other news organizations, launched NewsRight yesterday. The goal is license member content out to commercial aggregators.

Included in the service is an analytics suite that NewsRight’s creators says will let publishers understand what’s happening with their content. Via a NewsRight press release:

NewsRight will make it easy for publishers and third parties to access and use these data in editorial, marketing, advertising, public relations and other contexts involving the analysis of news events. Using the News Registry, a content measurement system developed at the Associated Press, NewsRight currently measures several billion impressions a month on news content from participating publishers. NewsRight participants and clients will receive real-time measurements about news patterns and how registered content is being used across digital platforms.

Over at Poynter, Rick Edmonds points out that NewsRight has competitors such as the older non-profit Copyright Clearance Center and the newer Attributor, but believes the move is putting the industry on track for a comprehensive paid digital content strategy:

Should NewsRight catch on big, as it founders hope, the industry will have in place a second leg to a paid digital content strategy. Paywalls and bundled print/digital subscriptions had a snowballing adoption curve in 2011 that will continue into this year. The New York Times metered model and its variations essentially ask heavy direct users of news websites to pay some of the cost of generating content.

NewsRight aims to apply the same strategy to aggregators, targeting those who make heavy (and commercial) use of content originated elsewhere. They are being asked to become payers rather than free riders.

In relation to AP staff being taken into custody at the Occupy Wall Street story, we’ve had a breakdown in staff sticking to policies around social media and everyone needs to get with their folks now to tell them to knock it off.

From an internal Associated Press email to its staff scolding them for using Twitter to report the arrests of AP journalists at Occupy Wall Street.

The Associated Press recently updated their social media policies (PDF). Among its Golden Rules: “Don’t break news that we haven’t published, no matter the format.”

H/T: Steffen Konrath.

AP, Google Team Up on Scholarship Award

If you’re an undergraduate or graduate student with a focus on journalism, innovation and technology, run this way.

Via the Online News Association:

The Associated Press and Google announce a new national scholarship program intended to foster digital and new media skills in student journalists. The Online News Association, the world’s largest membership organization of digital journalists, will administer the program.

The AP-Google Journalism and Technology Scholarship program will provide $20,000 scholarships for the 2012-13 academic year to six promising undergraduate or graduate students pursuing or planning to pursue degrees at the intersection of journalism, computer science and new media. The program is targeted to individual students creating innovative projects that further the ideals of digital journalism. A key goal is to promote geographic, gender and ethnic diversity, with an emphasis on rural and urban areas.

Applications are now open for the 2012-2013 academic year. Deadline is this January. But why wait until then when you can do it now.

Read up on how Google thinks about the scholarship on the Google Blog.

In June the Associated Press announced that it would open a news bureau in North Korea.  Earlier in the year, AP photographer David Guttenfelder and Seoul bureau chief Jean H. Lee were given “unprecedented access” to the country. Pictures from their trip are running at the Atlantic which notes: The pair made visits to familiar sites accompanied by government minders, and were also allowed to travel into the countryside accompanied by North Korean journalists instead of government officials. Though much of what the AP journalists saw was certainly orchestrated, their access was still remarkable. Image: Women perform a dance routine with badminton rackets at an event to mark the birthday of Kim Il Sung at a park in Pyongyang, North Korea, on April 15, 2011. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

In June the Associated Press announced that it would open a news bureau in North Korea. 

Earlier in the year, AP photographer David Guttenfelder and Seoul bureau chief Jean H. Lee were given “unprecedented access” to the country.

Pictures from their trip are running at the Atlantic which notes:

The pair made visits to familiar sites accompanied by government minders, and were also allowed to travel into the countryside accompanied by North Korean journalists instead of government officials. Though much of what the AP journalists saw was certainly orchestrated, their access was still remarkable.

Image: Women perform a dance routine with badminton rackets at an event to mark the birthday of Kim Il Sung at a park in Pyongyang, North Korea, on April 15, 2011. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

Problems with AP’s new “linking” policy

If anything, the AP’s decision to start linking to original sources is a hindrance. Because now, in addition to news outlets everywhere reproducing the same exact stories, they will all include unlinkedbit.ly URLs.

For the whole article, please see 10,000 Words.

mediabistro.com

AP To Open North Korea News Bureau

Via the Associated Press:

The Associated Press today announced agreements with the Korea Central News Agency, including one to open an AP news bureau in Pyongyang.

Leaders of the two news organizations held discussions during a New York visit by KCNA executives and this week signed two memos of understanding and a contract.

“Leaders of the two news organizations”? 

Have they read North Korea’s news feed?

ap.org

Gerald Herbert, photographer for the Associated Press, looks back via his photographs at the Gulf Coast Oil Spill one year later.

Via PBS NewsHour.

Run Time: 4:13.

AP Embraces Mozilla’s ‘Do Not Track’ Header

A new feature in Firefox 4 is support for something called a DNT header. Activate it in your browser preferences and Firefox will tell servers that you do not want to accept any tracking cookies.

This is a big deal for lots of people, both those who have privacy concerns and advertisers who’d like to allay those concerns, plop a cookie on your browser, track you as you go about your business and serve up behavioral ads based on that business.

Publishers like tracking because it helps them know who their visitors are which, in turn, lets them work with marketers and advertisers to deliver high valued, premium ads. 

All of which makes it all the more remarkable that the Associated Press is endorsing DNT headers.

Via Wired:

Mozilla announced today that the AP News Registry has implemented support for the DNT header across 800 news sites, which see more than 175 million unique visitors every month. That’s a huge shot in the arm for Do Not Track, which was previously a great idea, but one with little real-world application.

Starting today, provided you turn on the DNT preference in Firefox 4, the AP News Registry will no longer set any cookies.

AP To Launch News Licensing Group

The Associated Press is set to launch what it’s calling the News Licensing Group this summer, according to a press release from the organization.

The goal is to digitally track the use of content and collect royalties for its use.

Via the Wall Street Journal:

The Associated Press is launching what it hopes is the newspaper industry’s answer to ASCAP, an organization that helps songwriters get paid for every song played in public.

The board of the news cooperative on Thursday approved the formation of an independent entity tasked with tracking and policing the use of content from the AP and its member news organizations, and helping them get paid for it.

The entity, called the News Licensing Group and expected to launch this summer, is the outgrowth of simmering tensions among traditional news organizations over how their material is distributed online. As their readers have migrated online, many traditional news organizations have complained that they haven’t been able to adequately capitalize on the Internet in part because there are so many other websites repurposing their material.

Might be easier said than done.

As Rick Edmonds of Poynter observes:

But as AP goes to market with the high-profile service, it will find an established competitor vying to hold a big share of that business.

Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) has been harvesting royalties for re-use of material for more than 30 years. Most big newspapers are among its clients. There is room for multiple vendors in the field, a senior CCC executive told me last month, but AP may find the new venture tricky to perfect.

Fred Haber, CCC’s general counsel, said in a phone interview “there are two distinct sides to the business.” Enforcement involves tracking down unauthorized uses and sending “nastygram” notices to pay up. But the real money comes from establishing an efficient system that matches a large number of payers with a large number of content providers.

Let new copyright wars begin.

Shepard Fairey and The Associated Press Agree to Play Nice Over Obama Image

Artist Shepard Fairey and the Associated Press have gone from bad blood to BFF in a new tieup that will see a business partnership emerge from the row over an image of President Barack Obama that became one of the most ubiquitous images of the 2008 presidential campaign.

In settling the lawsuit, the AP and Mr. Fairey have agreed that neither side surrenders its view of the law. Mr. Fairey has agreed that he will not use another AP photo in his work without obtaining a license from the AP. The two sides have also agreed to work together going forward with the Hope image and share the rights to make the posters and merchandise bearing the Hope image and to collaborate on a series of images that Fairey will create based on AP photographs. The parties have agreed to additional financial terms that will remain confidential.

While this horse left the barn a long time ago—it’s now 2011, in case anyone was keeping track—a creative force like Shepard Fairey could do a lot with legal access to AP’s vast database of editorial images. However, one cannot help but wonder if this conclusion could have been reached years ago, and how necessary was all the legal sparring.

niemanlab.org

Now That We Have the Web, Do We Need Associated Press?

Via infoneer-pulse:

Media analyst Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, says that the list of things that the Internet has killed — or is in the process of killing — includes media syndication of the kind that the Associated Press and other newswires are built on. In a look at what 2011 will bring for media, written for the Nieman Journalism Lab, Shirky says this process, which is “a key part of the economic structure of the news business,” is next in line for widespread disruption, because it no longer makes sense in the age of the Internet, when anyone can syndicate content by pushing a button.

via GigaOM

infoneer-pulse