12/12/2003
AP names new chiefs in Phoenix and Albany, N.Y.

NEW YORK -- The Associated Press has named two veteran newspaper executives as chiefs of bureau in Phoenix and Albany, N.Y. Linda Wienandt will run the news cooperative's Arizona operations, and David Marcus will be responsible for New York state outside the New York City area.

The appointments were announced Friday by Tom Brettingen, senior vice president and director of Newspaper & New Media Markets.

Wienandt joins the AP from the Abilene Reporter-News in Texas, where she was managing editor. She succeeds Steve Elliott, who recently was named a deputy director of the Newspaper & New Media Markets department in New York.

Marcus has been assistant chief of bureau in Philadelphia since July 2002 when he joined the AP. He replaces Beth Grace, who previously was appointed chief of bureau in Kansas City. Marcus is the former editor of The Salem (Mass.) Evening News, and spent more than 25 years with Ottaway Newspapers, the community newspaper division of Dow Jones & Co. He is a graduate of Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.

Wienandt has in Abilene since September 2002. Previously, she was city editor of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and managing editor of The Bakersfield Californian. She began her daily newspaper career as a reporter at the Temple (Texas) Daily Telegram in 1976 and moved to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1977. She is a graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

contact: Jack Stokes
212-621-1720