NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press on Wednesday named Paul Haven, an experienced news manager and foreign correspondent who has led award-winning coverage in Latin America and elsewhere, as its global director of top stories. Current Top Stories Director Kristin Gazlay and her deputy, Jerry Schwartz, will become senior editor at large and editor at large, respectively, and will lead AP’s company-wide efforts to further elevate its writing and editing.
Haven will oversee the new Top Stories Hub, a multi-format consultancy that aims to elevate the storytelling and presentation of the news cooperative’s top global stories in all media formats. The Hub builds on the AP’s existing Top Stories Desk, bringing to a largely text-focused editing operation a greater focus on visual and digital storytelling, fostering of innovation and curation of AP’s customer- and consumer-facing platforms.
“Paul brings to this job a wealth of journalism experience on four continents,” said AP Vice President and Managing Editor Brian Carovillano. “He’s a source of calm and reason in the newsroom, but with a deep passion for breaking news and telling great stories.”
Haven most recently served as AP’s news director for Latin America, overseeing more than 100 journalists. His tenure included an award-winning investigation of the disappearance and likely murder of tens of thousands of Mexicans, a yearlong examination of Venezuela’s unravelling and innovative, all-formats coverage of the Mexico-U.S. border.
Haven began his career as a reporter in Bogota, Colombia, in the 1990s, and had stints as a national issues writer, a political polling editor and leader of AP’s international terrorism investigations following the Sept. 11 attacks. As bureau chief in Pakistan and Afghanistan, he won the 2005 Daniel Pearl Award Silver Prize for investigative reporting on al-Qaida and covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also served as chief of AP’s Havana bureau during Cuba’s nascent free-market reforms.
In their new roles, Gazlay and Schwartz will continue to polish much of AP’s top long-term enterprise and investigative work. They will also mentor and coach AP editors and writers around the world and participate in recruiting and career development. Their over-arching goal is to help foster an even more robust culture of great writing and editing across AP’s global network of journalists.
“Superb writing and editing remain a hallmark of the best journalism,” Carovillano said. “It is what separates the great from the very good. That’s why we are turning to the two of the best editors I know to help boost the AP’s best work to new levels.”
Gazlay has held major leadership roles at AP, in Texas, Arkansas, London and New York. She has served as assistant managing editor for features, London news editor, deputy managing editor for national news and managing editor for financial news, global training and state news. She became top stories director in 2014 after returning from a sabbatical.
Schwartz joined AP in 1977 as a reporter in the New York City bureau. He later became a national writer and editor, and led AP’s award-winning Newsfeatures team for many years. He is the author of the “AP Reporting Handbook” and was among the writers of “Breaking News: How The Associated Press has Covered War, Peace and Everything Else,” a 2007 history of the company and its journalists.
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Online: http://www.ap.org
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