Andrew Selsky, a veteran foreign correspondent for The Associated Press who has reported in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, has been named AP's Salem correspondent. He will cover Oregon state government and politics and write about issues throughout the West.
The appointment was announced Tuesday by West Editor Traci Carl, who oversees news for 13 states.
“Andrew is an accomplished reporter who has excelled in assignments across the world for AP,” Carl said. “He will bring a unique perspective to the West, from the changing economic landscape to the legalization of marijuana in many regions.”
Selsky, 60, has directed AP’s text coverage of 45 countries in Africa as the agency’s first regional Africa editor, based in Johannesburg, since 2009.
Selsky previously was the AP’s chief of Caribbean news, leading coverage of more than 30 countries and territories, including the U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His Guantanamo coverage was a finalist for the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award in 2007 and the Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting in 2008.
As bureau chief in Colombia from 1993 to 1995, he covered the death of Pablo Escobar and the rise of the Cali cocaine cartel and its corruption of Colombia’s presidential elections. He was then posted to Madrid as bureau chief for Spain and Portugal, where he reported on topics ranging from clandestine government kidnapping squads that targeted Basque separatists to the building of the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona. During this period, Selsky also reported from Kabul, Afghanistan, soon after the Taliban seized the capital.
He later served as correspondent based in South Africa, where he reported on the country’s transition from apartheid to a multiracial democracy and the AIDS pandemic. He returned to Colombia in 2000 as bureau chief, just as Washington’s multibillion-dollar campaign to fight FARC leftist rebels was ramping up and as the insurgents were at the height of their power.
Selsky got his first foreign reporting experience from 1985 to 1987 as correspondent and photographer in Honduras and Nicaragua, where he reported on Nicaragua’s civil war and the unfolding Iran-Contra scandal. He later was a newsman in Kansas City, Missouri, and then an editor on the international desk in New York before returning overseas. Before joining AP, Selsky worked for newspapers in Texas and Wyoming.
Born in Washington, Selsky graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in communication and a minor in international relations.
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