ATLANTA (AP) — Ravi Nessman, who has covered and led award-winning news stories in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the United States, has been named The Associated Press' deputy editor for the U.S. South region, overseeing coverage from 13 states and the District of Columbia.
The appointment was announced Thursday by South Editor Lisa Marie Pane.
Nessman was the South Asia bureau chief from 2009 until 2013, when he left to become a Nieman fellow at Harvard University, where he has been studying the role of poverty and religion in modern society. Based in New Delhi, he managed journalists in six countries, overseeing award-winning breaking news, enterprise and investigative coverage that included the deadly garment factory collapse in Bangladesh and an investigation into microfinance companies in India driving people to suicide. He teamed up with AP’s Kristen Gelineau, bureau chief for Australia, to produce “The Longest Journey Home,” a story of a young man’s quest to find his mother after they were separated decades earlier in India and he was adopted by a family in Australia. The two-part story won the 2013 APME award for feature writing.
“Ravi has a long and impressive track record of success at every level — as a reporter, as an editor and as a news leader,” Pane said. “He is driven to tell our most compelling stories in a way that explains, exposes and informs, to dig beneath the surface and explain how news events impact our lives. I can’t think of a better partner in our mission to capture the South for a global audience.”
“Ravi Nessman is one of the smartest and most energetic journalists I know, and one of our very best newsroom leaders,” said Brian Carovillano, the AP’s managing editor for U.S. news. “I am thrilled to have him on our team in the South.”
The AP’s South region encompasses news in 13 states — Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — and the District of Columbia.
Nessman joined AP in 1994 as a reporter in Chicago. He also was a reporter in Newark and Philadelphia and an editor on the International Desk in New York, before embarking on a journalism career overseas where he was news editor overseeing 11 southern African countries, correspondent in Jerusalem and bureau chief in Sri Lanka.
Nessman, 41, is a native of New Jersey and earned a bachelor’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
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