Meet Tom Curley

President and Chief Executive Officer, The Associated Press
Participant: We Media Miami ’10

Tom Curley is the 12th person to lead The Associated Press since its founding in 1846. Under his leadership AP is moving rapidly to capture the growing audience for digital and video news and assure AP’s relevance in the rapidly changing media world. Curley also has deepened AP’s longstanding commitment to the people’s right to know and serves as one of the nation’s most aggressive advocates for open government.

As part of his strategy for the digital age, Curley has charted an international plan to drive content and new business. A first milestone was the creation of a multimedia database that allows all AP content to be searched by AP journalists and customer alike. AP has added content for finance, on-line video and entertainment audiences.

Curley has established programs to encourage and celebrate exceptional journalism. AP became the first western news agency to open a bureau in Pyongang, North Korea, and added staff in Latin American, Asia and the Mideast, including Iraq where AP has more than a hundred journalists. Among recognition during Curley’s tenure are the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, awarded to AP for its work in Iraq, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, awarded to AP for a West Bank photo.

Curley first outlined his plan for increased open government in May, 2004, calling on news industry colleagues to do more to protect freedom of information. “The powerful have to be watched, and we are the watchers,” he said in his hallmark Hays Press Enterprise lecture, which can be read at http://www.ap.org/pages/about/whatsnew/hayspress.html. That year, the Associated Press also played a critical role in the establishment of a coalition of news organizations and journalism-related groups to promote accessible, accountable and open government. The Washington, D.C.-based Sunshine in Government Initiative seeks to combat what Curley and other media groups see as increased government secrecy since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

After Sunshine Week 2005, Curley told the National Freedom of Information Coalition that “the most important battle lines are drawn and the greatest advances on FOI have been made in your bailiwicks — in county seats and city halls and statehouses.” AP handles more than 40 actions a year to assure journalists have access to events, proceedings and information and, under Curley, has led the way in seeking information on the hundreds of detainees being held nameless and incommunicado at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

During Sunshine Week 2006, Curley was inducted into the National Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame. In July 2006, the National Press Club presented Curley with its John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award for extraordinary efforts to raise awareness and strengthen support for freedom of information issues. Curley, representing the Sunshine in Government Initiative, testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on FOIA during Sunshine Week 2007.

In October 2007, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press presented a First Amendment Award to Curley. RCFP said he was selected because of his work encouraging media organizations to fight for the public’s right to know what’s going on in government.