Press Release index

08/30/06

The Associated Press names 9 winners of Gramling Award for excellence

NEW YORK -- The Associated Press has named nine people from its editorial, technical and administrative staff from around the world as winners of its 2006 Gramling Awards for excellence.

The honorees include a video journalist who established a new bureau in North Korea, a department head whose team takes the lead in using research in everything from urgent breaking news to long-term investigative work, and editors who expanded AP's medical and science offerings and created a service targeted at the under-35 generation of readers.

"This eclectic group of winners shares in common an unselfish desire to go above and beyond the call of duty on a daily basis to push AP to a higher level of performance, no matter what field they are in or where in the world they're located," said AP President and CEO Tom Curley.

The Oliver S. Gramling Awards, now in their 13th year, are given annually to staff members whose work and initiative contribute significantly to the news report and to overall AP operations.

The awards are named for the AP newsman and executive who in 1941 developed AP's first radio wire. Gramling bequeathed his estate to AP when he died in 1992, directing that it be used for AP staff members nominated for excellence by their colleagues. A committee of AP bureau and department managers selected the winners.

This year's winners:

-- Gramling Journalism Awards ($10,000 each): Kit Frieden, health and science editor, who has worked tirelessly to assemble and direct a much expanded, first-rate team of medical and science reporters whose stories on health, fitness, diet and science are now some of AP's most popular content; Rafael Wober, AP Television News video journalist, who organized the opening of the first Western bureau in North Korea.

-- Gramling Achievement Awards ($10,000 each): Ted Anthony, asap editor, who was honored for his ground-breaking work as the founding editor of an evolving way of journalism that not only targets the vital 18-to-34 demographic, but also has helped change the way journalists in all corners of the AP think about how to report news and tell stories; Lynn Dombek, director of the News Research Center, who has made her team of researchers an integral part of AP journalism across all platforms and departments.

-- Gramling Spirit Awards ($3,000 each): Washington-based photographer J. Scott Applewhite for, among other things, his advocacy of press freedom through his work with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Senate Press Photographers Gallery; Howard Gros, Services & Technology south regional director, who endured personal losses while working night and day to provide support to staffers covering Hurricane Katrina; Mexico City-based Eloy Aguilar, regional administrator for Mexico/Central America, for training and mentoring a generation of journalists inside and outside the AP; and Clarence Roy-Macaulay, Sierra Leone correspondent, who through two decades as a journalist with the AP has passionately chronicled the ups and downs of his West African homeland, from brutal conflict through fledgling democracy.

-- Gramling Scholarship Award ($3,000): Atlanta-based medical writer Michael Stobbe, whose doctoral program classwork at the University of North Carolina's School of Public Health has allowed him to produce enterprise reports containing more legal and historical context.

Founded in 1846, The Associated Press is the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization, providing content to more than 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people around the world. Its multimedia services are distributed by satellite and the Internet to more than 120 nations.

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