the anglo-american N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E A N G L O - A M E R I C A N P R E S S A S S O C I AT I O N O F PA R I S

John Davidson

Nick Spicer

http://aapa.free.fr/

N o . 3 7 — FA L L 2 0 0 3

De Villepin looks for Iraq entry strategy

AGM invite

✍

Time to elect… and discuss

It was pure coincidence that brought French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin together with AAPA members last September 11. But France’s energetic top diplomat nonetheless spent much time talking about the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism”, the status of post-war Iraq, and Franco-American relations. De Villepin justified France’s position at the United Nations Security Council, where it is calling for political power in Iraq to be handed over to the Iraqi Governing Council as soon as possible. “To end the cycle of violence we must create the conditions which will allow the Iraqis to take up their responsibilities,” he said. “It is not in putting in a little more of a UN presence that things will change, or by adding several more foreign contingents,” he added. While that position has been hampering U.S. plans to get a UN imprimatur for its occupation of Iraq, as well as foreign troops and money, the minister said France only had Iraq’s interests at heart: “The goal of France is not ‘de se faire plaisir’, but to be efficient.” The breakfast meeting at France-Amériques hit a sombre note when an aide slipped the Minister a note. He announced that his “dear friend and colleague,” Swedish foreign Minister Anna Lindh, had just died after a stabbing attack in a Stockholm department store. De Villepin plucked up his spirits and addressed questions on the state of Franco American relations, describing as “absurd” charges that France’s position against the invasion of Iraq was driven by commercial interests. He said “we are all in a better position now for having defended our different ideas than we would have been otherwise,” adding that Paris and Washington were allies “yesterday, today and tomorrow”. Many members found the ministers’ comments refreshing. But others agreed with De Villepin’s own admission that the French were at times “too conceptual.” “How do I translate ‘l’ambiguité n’est plus acceptable’? asked one member when the minister had left. — N i c k S p i c e r, R e p o r t e r ( F r a n c e ) f o r N a t i o n a l P u b l i c R a d i o a n d A PA A C o m m i t t e e m e m b e r

✍ Invitations to this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) will soon be reaching members. It will be held at France-Amériques on Thursday, October 16. Once again, the Association’s Committee has decided to make the event free to members. Cocktails as well as other drinks and snacks will be served. Chaired by outgoing President Charles Bremner, bureau chief of The Times of London, the meeting is an occasion to hear a brief report on the Association’s financial accounts, given by Treasurer Ronnie Koven, European representative of the World Press Freedom Committee. And Secretary General Axel Krause gives an overview of the year just passed and an assessment of what’s in store for the future. Members are encouraged to ask questions on related topics. Elections are held on a slate of officers as well as on the members of the Committee, which meets monthly to run the Association’s regular business. There will also be time for informal chatting. Please attend! — JD

PRESS-GANG New members, updates, moves, passings and other news of association members. Page 2. And don’t forget to send in your own news and updates for the next issue’s Press-Gang. E-mail them to the editor at: [email protected] ANGLO-AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION OF PARIS Founded in 1907 Honorary Presidents: The British and U.S. ambassadors to France Coordinator: Elisa Kitson [email protected]

the anglo-american

PRESS-GANG N e w m e m b e r s : Katrin Bennhold, covering the French government for Bloomberg; Christina Passariello, of BusinessWeek; Sophie Pedder, bureau chief at The Economist; Phyllis Springer, of SIPA Press; and Elizabeth Venant, of the Los Angeles Times. K u d o s : John G Morris is to receive the Erich Salomon Award 2003 of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh), at a ceremony Oct. 12 at the new Forum Internationale Photographie Reiss Engelhorn Museen, in Mannheim, Germany. The award is being given for "exemplary use of photography in print media and commitment to photography in more than 50 years — actually more than 60, he points out — as picture editor of Life, Magnum, The Washington Post, The New York Times and National Geographic. He’s also begun writing "Letters from Paris" for News Photographer, the monthly of the National Press Photographers Association. The first column, in June, was on Henri Cartier-Bresson and the second, for October, is on Visa Pour l'Images, the international photojournalism festival at Perpignan. He reports that his wife Tana is “holding her own” at a clinic just outside Paris. I n k p o t : Michael Balter, Paris-based correspondent for Science and past APAA Committee member, is writing an archaeology book for Simon and Schuster about the famous Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk in Turkey. He continues to run the Paris bureau of Science with the help of his chief stringer, AAPA member Barbara Casassus. The book is due out in January 2005. David Wingate Pike, now director of research at the American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy, is publishing his second book on the Holocaust, this time with RandomHouseMondadori-Grijalbo. His screenplay The Eyes of Mauthausen, based on the book, is being examined by the American producer Michael Fitzgerald.

Reuters re-or ganizes Paris operations

✍

The Reuters bureau is reshuffling its top jobs. After six years as chief political correspondent, Tom Heneghan is shifting focus within the Paris bureau. Current Jerusalem chief correspondent Tim Heritage is due to arrive in November to take over the money, politics and general (MPG) news team. Heneghan will divide his time between helping to cover French and European issues as senior political correspondent and running a new global network of Reuters staffers reporting on religion in politics. Noah Barkin, formerly senior equities correspondent, has taken over as chief equities correspondent from Tim Hepher, who has taken a new job as news manager for treasury, commodities and energy. Brian Love has added the role of deputy chief correspondent MPG to his position as senior economic correspondent.

Passing…and remembering

Aline Mosby, long-time APAA member

✍ At last, the biography of one of our members whom we recall most fondly -—Aline Mosby — is out and available. ”Montana’s Scoop,” in the form of a master's degree thesis running to 174 pages (with the possibility of further publication), covers Aline's life,

Aline Mosby at Flathead Lake, Montana, site of her cabin.

loves, adventures, scoops and, in the final phase of her colorful career, her contributions to the Association. The author, Anne Sundberg Siess, graduated this spring from the University of Montana School of Journalism, Aline's alma mater. Siess has pulled together an impressive collection of material and draws heavily on interviews she conducted with some of us last year. She also covers the many tributes to Aline, read or spoken, made during our memorial meeting for her at France-Ameriques November 5, 1998. Siess cites, among many others, such members, active and former, as: B. J. Cutler, Art Higbee, Brigid Janssen, Bill Landrey, Flora Lewis, Bud Korengold, Jon Randal, Scott Sullivan and yours truly. It is a lively, captivating, well-researched work on a female colleague who pioneered the role of women in our profession. For those who would like to obtain their own copy, there is a fee for copying, binding and mailing, and for further information, you should contact the author at [email protected]. And my copy can be consulted. — A x e l K r a u s e , C o n t r i b u t i n g E d i t o r, E u r o p e M a g a z i n e a n d A PA A S e c r e t a r y G e n e r a l