Press Releases

08/18/2008

AP appoints South Korea bureau chief

NEW YORK (AP) -- Jean H. Lee, a supervising editor for The Associated Press in Europe, will become AP's chief of bureau in Seoul, South Korea, the news cooperative announced Monday.

Lee, 38, joined the AP in Baltimore in 1995, following a stint at a newspaper in Seoul. In 1996, she transferred to Fresno, Calif., and a year later moved to San Francisco, where she reported on immigration, arts and social issues.

She was promoted to the International Desk in New York in 1999 and had assignments at the Sydney Olympics and the historic summit between the leaders of North and South Korea in 2000.

Named to the AP's Europe-Africa Desk in London in 2004, Lee has contributed to coverage at several Group of Eight and European Union summits and the Virginia Tech massacre in the United States.

A Korean speaker, she holds a bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies and English literature from Columbia University and a master's degree from the university's Graduate School of Journalism.

"The AP is fortunate to have such a tough, incisive editor with experience on three continents to lead its Korean news operations," said John Daniszewski, AP managing editor for international news.

In her new post, Lee succeeds Burt Herman, who has taken professional leave as a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University for 2008-2009.