Douglas Kennedy Meets The Press
A crowd of more than 50 people filled John Morris' loft Nov. 22 to hear best-selling novelist Douglas Kennedy talk about himself, his art and his vision of the world. Kennedy, whose 1998 novel "The Big Picture" has recently been made into a box hit of a movie in France, “L'Homme Qui Voulait Vivre Sa Vie," has sold millions of books worldwide. Kennedy explained how he organizes his writing, and…
AAPA Meets Le Monde's Top Brass
More than 20 AAPA members went to Le Monde on November 9 to meet with the group's director, Éric Fottorino, and chief editor Sylvie Kauffmann, over an informal, bring-your-own lunch in the newspaper's conference room. The discussion centered around the paper's new trio of major shareholders who saved the paper from bankruptcy -- Pierre Bergé, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse -- and their impact…
Reporters sans frontières
Protecting the freedom of journalists has become far more difficult and complex during the past few years, but organized efforts to combat media controls are increasing throughout the world, according to Jean-Francois Julliard, secretary general of Reporters sans frontières. Meeting with over a dozen of us at RsF headquarters Oct, 18, Julliard, who became its secretary general two years ago,…
Peter Gumbel's new book
“On achève bien les écoliers” (Grasset) Back in 2002, we moved to Paris from Los Angeles, in part because we wanted our children to have a great European education. French schools, with their high academic standards, seemed to offer just that, at least from a distance. It didn’t take long to discover that the reality of school here is far removed from the magnificent ideal of a great…
Annual Gala Gets Top Marks
Virginia Power welcomes the AAPA to the U.S. Ambassdor's residence Charles-Efflam Heidsieck plays for Yana Boukoff Presidential special envoy George Mitchell and ambassadors Charles Rivkin and Sir Peter Westmacott The gala 2010 was one of the best ever, with 90 members celebrating It was one of the best AAPA galas in recent years, according to many of those present. Some ninety members and…
A Field Guide for Global Reporting
A Field Guide for Global Reporting “Whenever you see hundreds of thousands of sane people trying to get out of a place, and a little bunch of madmen struggling to get in, you know the latter are newspapermen.” It was this astute observation by iconic reporter H.R. Knickerbocker that Mort Rosenblum uses as a peg for his latest book: "Little Bunch Of Madmen," designed as a field manual for global…
Omar Samad
Afghan Envoy Expounds On Conflict Resolution In the shadow of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s rapid retreat from Kabul to Washington, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Paris underscored what he described as his country’s long-standing reliance on peaceful resolution of conflict. “Components” of the Obama administration’s strategy need tweaking, Omar Samad said in a meeting with Association members on June…
A Look Inside the NYPD
AAPA member and Newsweek Paris bureau chief Christopher Dickey's critically acclaimed book "Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force -- the NYPD," is now out in paperback and as an e-book from Simon and Schuster. Picked by the New York Times as a notable book of 2009, this widely acclaimed and highly readable narrative shows how the New York City Police Department met the the…
John Morris
AAPA member John G. Morris received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the May 10 "Infinity Awards" dinner of New York's International Center of Photography, attended by 600. The awards honor nine members of the photographic community each year. The award for photojournalism went to the Paris-based freelance Reza. The top award to a photographer, named for ICP founder Cornell Capa, went to the…
Heisbourg
Iran’s growing nuclear ambitions, the Israeli-Turkish incident, South Korea’s response to the sinking of its ship in the Yellow Sea and Obama’s posture on nuclear non-proliferation were just a few of the topics covered when one of France’s pre-eminent foreign-policy thinkers met with AAPA members at the home of member John Morris on June 9. Heisbourg, who was a guest of the Association on three…