Ritter, ex-AP biz editor, becomes AP weekend editor

Mike Oreskes, senior managing editor at the Associated Press, sent out the following announcement on Monday:

The Associated Press creates a great deal of great journalism. A few months ago, we asked Assistant Managing Editor John Mancini to come up with a plan to assure that our presentation and distribution of that journalism was just as great. We want to assure that our report is organized to have maximum impact on our audiences and provide maximum benefit to our customers. He has come back with a strong plan and, in the process, demonstrated that he is the guy to make sure that what needs to get done gets done.

So John Mancini, remaining firmly anchored as a leader of the Nerve Center, will expand his responsibilities to take on a crucial task: directing the programming of the AP report. His task will be to look ahead — a day, a week, a month– and make sure we will have what we need for a strong report every day. This involves both envisioning what our spot news report might be like and then getting a strong handle on what our non-spot news options will be. From those two flows of journalism we will build a consistently great report. This mission is of course at the core of what the Nerve Center is for and John will work shoulder to shoulder with Deputy Managing Editor Tamer Fakahany and news leaders in the field.

As you will recognize, he has already been building the tools to do this job. He has created a system for planning and scheduling non-spot news which, among other things, got us through the long holidays in strong form. He will be building on that so that each day our report can integrate breaking news and strong news we break.

John’s pipeline of non-spot news is of course only as good as what we all put into it. He has been working closely with Ted Anthony, the interim global enterprise editor, and others across the AP to encourage and sharpen our flow of distinctive work.
John came to the AP three years ago and has had an up close view of news operations as flag officer in charge first of overnight US time and then weekends.

Before coming to the AP John had deep experience in presenting the news with the audience in mind. As editor in chief of Newsday he oversaw one of the nation’s largest newspapers. To edit is to choose, and there are few disciplines in all of journalism that force focus better than the front page of a tabloid like Newsday. It is right up there with producing news for a nightly broadcast or a morning website. And John has experience in both the television and digital news worlds as well.

What is our most important story? If there isn’t spot news worthy of our front page what have we got in the drawer we can use? How can we sum up that story in a very few words (The legendary wood)? What is the best image in the world today?

These are the kind of questions John will make sure we are asking to make our report as sharp as possible.

To let John focus on programming our report, he will permanently move off weekends. That might be worrisome, except we have an ideal successor close at hand.

He is Hal Ritter, our former business editor and before that head of the business section and later the news section of USA Today. Hal has filled in very effectively as interim global weekend editor while John was off on this programming project. You all know Hal as the cool-under-fire leader who stays on top of the spot news and keeps our non-spot news relevant and immediate. He is always in a search to make our journalism smarter and more interesting to our audiences, sharpened in that pursuit by his years of experience at a major customer. He understands how to project and promote our biggest efforts. In his weekend role, Hal has had a strong impact overseeing AP’s response to breaking news around the globe, from the Kenyan mall attack to the fatal Metro-North rail accident.
Hal’s efforts and editorial strengths demonstrate that he will be a strong global weekend leader.

Indeed, as one of the news leaders with a passion for enterprise, he will be a key partner for John in creating and managing the flow of non-spot news that will assure a strong report every day, even on days with less news, such as weekends.

Please send your congratulations and pledges of support to Hal and John.