 |
||||||||||||||||
|
The Associated Press Bureau e-mail: apdesmoines@ap.org Chief of Bureau: Carol Riha
News Editor:
Scott
McFetridge
Political Writer:
Mike Glover
Reporter:
Amy Lorentzen
Reporter: Michael J. Crumb Iowa City: Nigel Duara Photographer: Charlie Neibergall
Upcoming Events: June 18-21: Iowa Corn Indy 250 July 30-Aug 1: NASCAR Nationwide Series Race Aug 14-15: Knoxville Nationals Sept. 3 - Iowa State-North Dakota State FBC Sept. 5: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Race Sept. 5: Iowa-Northern Iowa FBC Sept 12: Iowa-Iowa State FBC Sept 19: Iowa-Arizona FBC Sept. 26: Iowa State-Army FBC Oct. 3: Iowa-Arkansas State FBC Oct. 10: Iowa-Michigan FBC Oct. 17: Iowa State-Baylor FBC Oct. 31: Iowa-Indiana FBC Nov. 7: Iowa-Northwestern FBC; Iowa State-Oklahoma State FBC Nov. 14: Iowa State-Colorado FBC Nov. 21: Iowa-Minnesota FBC If you know of additional upcoming events that you think should be listed here, please contact the AP bureau in Des Moines. |
A Yorkshire hog sits in its holding pen at the World Pork Expo in Des Moines. Continued bans on U.S. pork imports by China, Russia and more than a dozen other counties, instituted in the wake of the swine flu outbreak, are costing the U.S. hog industry millions of dollars every week. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
June 2009
Highlights from the state report DES MOINES _ Continued bans on U.S. pork imports by China, Russia and more than a dozen other countries have baffled government and industry officials, leading some to speculate that the issue is more about market share than health concerns. The bans, instituted in the wake of the swine flu outbreak, cost the U.S. hog industry millions of dollars every week. And they continue despite insistence by international health officials that the pork is safe and the country's hogs are not to blame for the epidemic. "It's politics and not science," said John Lawrence, a professor and livestock economist at Iowa State University. "The product is safe. So why restrict imports?" BC-US--Farm Scene-Pork Ban. Moved June 4. By Luke Meredith. DES MOINES _ It's been six months since voters handed Barack Obama the White House, and in the minds of a lot of Iowa activists that means only one thing: It's time to start the campaign again. 2012 already? Yes, 2 1/2 years before Iowans gather for their first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses, early presidential campaigning has begun. "We had a brief pause for two or three months when people went somewhere warm, and then it starts again," said Richard Schwarm, a Lake Mills lawyer and former state Republican Party chairman. "Most of the old war horses hear the bell and start responding again." BC-US--Nonstop Campaigning. Moved May 31. By Mike Glover. IOWA CITY _ Iowa Gov. Chet Culver has released some e-mails he sent in his first two years in office using private computers and non-government servers, a move that follows criticism that he was using private e-mail accounts to dodge public-records law. Freedom-of-information advocates called the decision a step forward for transparency in state government that counters a trend of public officials who deny access to electronic correspondence. Joseph P. Sandler, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney for Culver's election campaign, said after researching the matter, he concluded that the governor's e-mails dealing with state business between addresses on non-government servers are public record. He made the decision in response to a public records request by The Associated Press. BC-US--Iowa Governor-E-Mails. Moved May 5. By Nigel Duara. DES MOINES _ A court ruling and decision by Iowa Gov. Chet Culver could make the difference in a debate over millions of dollars in utility franchise fees. At issue is a battle over fees charged by the city of Des Moines for natural gas and electrical customers, but the matter could soon include communities throughout the state because of a measure approved by the Legislature and now awaiting Culver's signature. The question dates to 2004, when attorney Brad Schroeder filed a lawsuit on behalf of Lisa Kragnes, a single mother and Des Moines resident who questioned why the franchise fee was on her bill. BC-APFN-US--Fee Fight-Iowa. Moved May 20. By Michael J. Crumb. POSTVILLE _ Hundreds gathered in the small northeast Iowa town of Postville on Tuesday to mark the one-year anniversary of a huge immigration raid and reflect on the community's difficulty in recovering from the arrests. After a prayer vigil at St. Bridget's Catholic Church, participants marched a half mile to the Agriprocessors Inc. kosher slaughterhouse, escorted by sheriff's deputies and state troopers. About 650 people attended the vigil, including four busloads from the Minneapolis area and Chicago. BC-US--Kosher Slaughterhouse. Moved May 12. By Nigel Duara. WEST DES MOINES _ Mark McNulty won the Principal Charity Classic on Sunday for his seventh Champions Tour victory, beating Fred Funk with a 30-foot birdie putt on the fourth hole of a playoff. The 55-year-old McNulty closed with a 5-under 66 to match Funk (66) and second-round leader Nick Price (68) at 10-under 203 on the Glen Oaks Country Club course. McNulty and Funk birdied the second extra hole to eliminate Price. BC-GLF--Champions Tour. Moved May 31. By Luke Meredith. DAVENPORT _ An elementary school student in Davenport, Iowa, gave rat poison to seven classmates, but a district official says no one was sickened. District spokeswoman Laura Bozarth says second- and third-graders at Monroe Elementary School ingested a small amount of pellets before school Tuesday. One student told a school employee. Bozarth says some parents took their children to doctors but none showed any symptoms and most returned to school Wednesday. BC-US--Rat Poison-School. Moved June 4. By Melanie S. Welte. OTTUMWA _ For a brief shining moment in the 1980s, Ottumwa was the unlikely hot spot of the fledgling video game industry as gamers around the globe flocked to this sleepy Iowa city and its video game arcade for a series of landmark tournaments. Gamers set world records, the TV show "That's Incredible" broadcast a tournament to a national audience, and then-mayor Jerry Parker dubbed Ottumwa "The Video Game Capital of the World." The glory days didn't last long. The Twin Galaxies arcade closed within a couple years, and memories of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong dimmed for everyone _ except arcade owner Walter Day, who dreamed of making Ottumwa into a permanent game destination. BC-US--Video Game Capital. Moved May 17. By Luke Meredith. _ Photos of the Month
ALL AGOG for GOOGLE: Tom Zimmer, of Council Bluffs, shows his support while attending of the new Google Data Center in Council Bluffs, on May 19. (AP Photo/The Daily Nonpareil, Cindy Christensen)
LAST DAYS FOR UNI BASEBALL: Northern Iowa's Jeff Taliaferro, right, celebrates with Jason Summers after an NCAA baseball game May 16 at Riverfront Stadium in Waterloo. UNI won 3-2. (AP Photo/The Courier, Matthew Putney) ___ MEMBER NEWS The Mid-America Press Institute is holding a sportswriting seminar June 29-30 in St Louis. Called "Covering sports in a Twitter world," the program starts with an 8 p.m. reception Sunday night at The Millennium Hotel. Monday's sessions include the fundamentals of social media, making print and online coverage work together, and covering the big story. Tuesday's sessions include building better prep coverage, online guidelines and ideas about sharing what you've learned back in the newsroom. For more information, visit: http://www.mpinews.org. ___ The Iowa Newspaper Foundation, along with the press associations from Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri, will hold a newspaper summit Thursday, Sept. 17 in Dubuque. The summit’s focus will be developing a new business model to help newspapers adapt to the rapid changes they are experiencing in the wake of the digital age. Jo Martin, INF Board President and chief operating officer of Times-Citizen Communications in Iowa Falls, said, “This is a time of great changes for our industry as well as a terrifying direction for our national economy. Both are creating enormous challenges for some of our greatest newspapers and their newsrooms. To meet those challenges and take advantage of the savings that technology offers, newspapers are turning more and more to internet publishing. However, online products have yet to show the business model that pays for those very newsrooms. If papers reduce their newsrooms further, or worse yet, fold entirely, who will step in and do the extraordinary reporting that newspapers do? “The purpose of this summit is to help further organize the search for a working business model. A model that includes the opportunities that technology offers while allowing us a revenue stream that pays for our newsrooms,” she said Alan Mutter, author of the blog “Reflections of a Newsosaur,” will serve as the keynote speaker for the one-day event. The schedule also includes an intelligence briefing highlighting recently-conducted studies and a panel discussion featuring leaders who have taken steps to address the industry’s challenges. For more information, go to www.inanews.com.
Please remember to send any member news, including awards, staff changes and interesting industry tidbits, to Iowa Chief of Bureau Carol Riha at criha@ap.org. ___ AP News
AP Mobile helps members reach new audiences
AP Mobile, the first product from the AP’s Digital Cooperative,
recently celebrated its one-year anniversary and announced that more t AP Mobile continues to help newspapers create new opportunities in the digital realm and the Las Vegas Review-Journal is one of the members using AP Mobile to reach a larger audience and share their content across platforms. Recently, the Las Vegas Review-Journal began offering photos with their text stories, attracting the widest audience possible with the fullest range of content. Al Gibes, Executive Director of Stephens Media Interactive, explains more about what the Las Vegas Review-Journal is doing with AP Mobile in a short video. To see it, click here. ___ AP introduces interactive maps to measure economic stress at county, state levels AP has launched an index that provides monthly, multi-format updates on the economic stress of the United States down to the county level. The Associated Press Economic Stress Index weighs three economic variables -- unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcy -- to produce a score on a scale of 0-100 that measures how the recession is affecting a county compared to all others. The maps will be updated monthly to reveal each county's AP Economic Stress score, as well as its unemployment, foreclosure and bankruptcy rates. These updates will be accompanied by a series of text stories, photos and video that illuminate and provide context to the data.
The map is
currently available to Hosted Custom News members, but will be
available as a premium interactive starting this summer. Details to
come. South Editor Brian Carovillano, Central Editor David Scott, Orlando correspondent Mike Schneider, and Raleigh reporter Mike Baker, collaborated over six months to develop the Stress Index. South multimedia editor Peter Prengaman, artist Carrie Osgood, developer John Balestrieri, newsroom innovation editor Troy Thibodeaux, interactive producer Jake O'Connell and database editor Allen Chen logged hundreds of hours to create one of AP's most ambitious interactives, with other key contributions from interactive editor Erin Hanafy, assistant business editor Matt Fordahl, features editor Jerry Schwartz, national writer Ted Anthony and Jon Resnick of Online Video. For their creativity in developing an economic tool that will be a benchmark for the future, the team behind the stress map was awarded the Beat of the Week Prize for May 19, 2009. ____ AP's new personal finance package is part of AP Member Choice The Associated
Press has launched a package of new weekly and monthly The material -- in the form of stories, Q&As and top tips -- aimed at helping readers make decisions large and small, from investing a sudden windfall to switching careers to dealing with a car mechanic to turning a hobby into something that pays. Personal Finance Editor Trevor Delaney is the editor for the project. Take a look at the schedule of fixtures by clicking here. The Personal Finance content is free to all members as a part of the Member Choice Program. ___ AP’s Online Video Network team offers ''Open House'' trainings for subscribers AP’s Online Video Network team is offering subscribers a series of ''Open House'' training calls via WebEx, to update customers on recent progress in the Online Video Network. They will be conducting one open house a month for at least the next three months and these will be open call-in sessions where OVN members can take part in the WebEx to learn more about upgrades and great things happening in the Online Video Network. It's also a chance for members to ask questions. Upcoming open house calls are scheduled on July 7 at 1 p.m. Central, July 9 at 10 a.m. Central, August 4 at 1 p.m. Central and August 5 at 1 p.m. Central. Calls in July will focus on the top creative uses of the Online Video Network and calls in August will focus on OVN improvements in design and technology. All Iowa AP members will receive an e-mail as soon as call-in details are available. Stay tuned! ___ ''Capital Culture,'' debuts early June
The AP has introduced a new column this month that explores the
cultural Called ''Capital Culture,'' this fixture moves each Monday afternoon for use beginning at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. This new column will include profiles of key administration players as well as the lesser known people who make the White House and Congress work. It also will provide insider glimpses of Washington power brokers and explore how the Obamas are impacting American culture, from fashion to gardening to pickup basketball. These features will be a joint effort of the AP's White House team in Washington and Lifestyles team in New York. ___ 2009 AP Stylebook now available in print and online
For the first time, the Stylebook has a "Quick Reference Guide" so users can quickly find answers to the most common questions on topics such as abbreviations and acronyms; homicide, murder and manslaughter; polls and surveys, and time element. The AP Stylebook Online has also been improved. We've added audio pronunciation guides for newsmakers, an updated search function and detailed information on U.S. and international companies. The Online version is updated throughout the year and allows users to customize with their own listings, examples and local variations on AP style. The new print edition and online subscriptions can be ordered online through the secure site, http://www.apbookstore.com. The order form also allows customers to create an invoice to pay by check or money order, credit or debit card, and member news organizations can request direct assessment. The new edition costs $11.75 for member news organizations, $11.75 for college bookstores and $18.95 retail. ___ Savannah Morning News is using AP Complete to transform its business
Innovation is the key to the transition that the
newspaper industry is facing Executive Editor Susan Catron explains more in the short video below. She describes how AP Complete has helped the Savannah Morning News * Narrow down different types of stories in order to target specific audiences in the community. * Increase traffic to their Web site * Take advantage of AP’s flexible licensing options to expand their reach and target new audiences with topic pages and community sites You can view the full video by clicking here. More information on AP Complete can be found in the Member Choice Product Guide, available at http://www.ap.org/choice/toolkit.html. The 32-page guide is accompanied by a spreadsheet that can be sorted so, for example, you can view all of the columns AP offers or take a look at everything that moves on Fridays. Both are designed to help answer your questions now that all members have access to all English-language wires (including all 50 state reports), the entire sports report (including a much larger amount of sports agate), and AP’s premier stocks and markets service, Money & Markets, for print and online use. Both the product guide and the spreadsheet are updated regularly and are useful tools for you and your newsroom. For more information, contact Iowa Chief of Bureau Carol Riha.. ___ Beat of the Week Exclusive photos
Empty neighborhood
Months of reporting by Sewell and colleagues Karoub in Detroit, Thompson in Buffalo and Leingang in Columbus fleshed out the real dimensions of a forgotten housing crisis in America. Bass, meanwhile, produced state-by-state tables offered in advance of publication to bureaus and AP member newsrooms for localizing, and more than 600 outside news organizations downloaded the data. Photos and a 1,300-word AP IMPACT mainbar, written by Sewell and Bass, moved in advance to give member newsrooms time to provide their own localized stories.
UAW approval
Good reporting sometimes involves just the basic shoe leather: You can’t have face-to-face contact if you’re not there. When local leaders of the United Auto Workers met to consider a proposed deal to keep Chrysler alive, it was clear this was a story you couldn't get just by working the phones. So auto writer Tom Krisher asked the Detroit bureau if it could spare a reporter to stake out the meeting. It was a shot that paid off.
____ Special Editions
A Special Edition on ''Weddings'' moved Tuesday, June 2, with stories about gown designer Reem Acra; how to cut costs by using the Internet; tips for bridesmaids; why some couples are getting wedding insurance; managing the rehearsal-dinner guest list; and how to make a homemade cake topper. All stories were accompanied by photos. The schedule for the rest of the year:
|
AP links:
Iowa: http://www.ifoic.org
Journalism: Iowa AP:
Online Training: AP offers weekly online training sessions for several of its services, including: AP Exchange: Join a School of Search training session and learn how to become a search expert and find relevant news quickly in AP Exchange. Thirty-minute training sessions are held Thursdays at 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. CT. AP Member Marketplace: Learn how to share your news with other papers in your state, your group or around the country. Thirty-minute training sessions are held every Tuesday at 1 p.m. CT. AP WebFeeds and WebFeeds Manager: Learn how to work with AP’s new online distribution platform, a fast, convenient way to get the AP content you want most into your production system or onto your Web site. Sixty-minute sessions are held Wednesdays at noon Central Time. All sessions are held using Web Dialogs, allowing participants to join in both online and by telephone. To join any of these training sessions, go to www.webdialogs.com/join with conference ID 95552 and dial (866) 206-0240 with conference ID 965 385#.
Technical problems? Call AP Customer Support at 1-877-836-9477 |
||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
©2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
|
||||||||||||||||
han
55 million local stories have been read on AP Mobile,
consumer-oriented content to offer readers insight on how they can
earn, spend, invest and save money. 
side of Washington, from the personalities and behind-the-scenes
activities of the Obama White House to the peculiarities and intrigue
that make the nation’s capital unique. 
and AP is focused on finding ways to help
you capitalize on the value of the cooperative. The Savannah Morning
News is using AP Complete to transform its business and explore new
revenue opportunities. 
two exclusive photographs (and video in one case) taken within hours
amid intense competition on two different continents. Each shooter
trounced the competition by planning ahead, finding the perfect
location and staying ready for the unexpected. Rome-based photographer
Alessandra Tarantino was covering an Italian industrialists meeting,
where Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was expected. Everybody was
waiting for him to take the stage. But Tarantino, from the rear of the
hall, aimed her 400mm at the Italian premier, still sitting in the
audience. He started wiping his forehead, and to Tarantino's surprise,
he was using a white cloth to hide a face powder puff and to dab his
make-up. 
In
the meantime, in Virginia, Michael Vick was returning home from
prison. Cooperation and planning, and good old-fashioned quick
thinking, produced exclusive photos and video of Vick at home, testing
the electronic monitoring device on the deck in the back of his house.
When Vick pulled into his Hampton, Va., garage, he hid behind dark
curtains in the vehicle. A short time later, federal agents arrived to
fit him with the monitoring device. While the rest of the media stayed
in front of the house, AP video stringer Kevin Sullivan and free-lance
photographer Jason Hirschfeld went to a vacant lot next door with a
view of Vick's backyard. It was a smart move. Vick appeared on a
backyard deck for 30 seconds to test the device 
answered the question, 
AP
reporter David Goodman was there when UAW President Ron Gettelfinger
emerged from the three-hour meeting after winning the support of local
union presidents. And then, figuring he had nothing to lose, Goodman
asked for a written summary of the deal. Gettelfinger agreed, and
Goodman phoned details to Krisher in the bureau. The result: an
eight-minute beat over the Wall Street Journal on the union approval.
Then Goodman turned back to the full summary, and there, buried on
