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 ImageKathleen 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