The Associated Press appoints Jahn and Clendenning; new role for Seward

AP appoints Jahn, Clendenning, Seward

NEW YORK — George Jahn, a veteran foreign correspondent in central Europe, has been named The Associated Press bureau chief in Vienna, while Alan Clendenning, who now directs AP’s coverage in Brazil, will head the cooperative’s bureau in Madrid.

In addition, in a realignment of duties, AP’s Paris Chief of Bureau Deborah Seward also will give oversight to AP bureaus in Brussels and Amsterdam.

The changes were announced Friday by Senior Managing Editor John Daniszewski in New York.

Jahn, 61, who will be responsible for coverage of Austria and 11 countries of eastern and central Europe, succeeds William J. Kole, who was appointed chief of bureau for New England in October. Clendenning, 47, takes over from Paul Haven, who became AP’s bureau chief in Havana last July.

Jahn joined the AP in Geneva in 1982. He also worked as a newsman in Boston and in 1987 transferred to the international desk in New York, where he was an editor. Based in Vienna since 1989, Jahn played a leading role in AP’s coverage of the fall of communism in eastern Europe, the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the efforts by former communist societies to develop economically and integrate with the West.

In recent years he covered the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency and the international negotiations over the nuclear program in Iran, developing a reputation as an authority on the subject.

“George brings tremendous experience and expertise to his new position as bureau chief,” said Dan Perry, AP’s Europe Editor. “He’s a tenacious newsman who will lead by example and drive insightful coverage of a region that is still changing, often troubled and always interesting.”

As bureau chief in Vienna, Jahn will supervise AP’s coverage of Austria as well as Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova.

Jahn was a co-recipient of the Associated Press Managing Editors 1992 award for AP reportorial news for his contribution to the coverage of the war in Bosnia. In 2007, he was honored by the U.N. Correspondents’ Association for his IAEA coverage. He is vice president of the Foreign Press Association in Vienna.

A Canadian Army veteran, Jahn was embedded with the U.S. Navy during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and was part of AP’s front-line editing team during the U.S. campaign that toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Before coming to the AP Jahn worked for the German news agency DPA and with several Canadian media outlets. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Western Ontario.

Clendenning joined the AP in 1998 in New Orleans. He transferred in 2001 to AP’s business desk in New York, where he covered mergers and acquisitions. He was posted in 2002 to Sao Paulo, where he worked as a business correspondent before being named Brazil bureau chief in 2007. Clendenning has also reported for AP from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

Clendenning has led AP’s coverage of the two terms of Brazil’s first working-class president and other stories ranging from jungle deforestation, natural disasters, worsening gang violence to Brazil’s rise as an agricultural superpower and alternative energy supplier and the mysterious mid-Atlantic crash of an Air France jet that killed 228 people last year.

“Al will bring the same drive that he used to build up the Brazil report to Spain and Portugal, countries where AP is looking to break new ground in business coverage and in following the developments of societies at a time of great change,” Perry said.

Born in Bethesda, Maryland, and raised in Hanover, New Hampshire, Clendenning graduated with a journalism degree from Emerson College in Boston. He is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish.

Before joining AP, Clendenning wrote for the Portland (Maine) Press Herald and the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel.

Seward, 53, will assume supervisory oversight of AP bureau chiefs in Brussels and Amsterdam. The organizational change is intended to more closely coordinate coverage among the three bureaus and provide greater flexibility is assigning resources.

“As Europe becomes more integrated, it is logical to pool some of our reporting resources on the continent for greater effectiveness and flexibility,” said Daniszewski.

Seward began her AP career in Warsaw, Poland, in 1988, and has held a number of positions in the cooperative, including serving as international editor of the AP from 2003-2005.

She left for one year to direct the Central Newsroom of Radio Free Europe/Liberty in Prague, where she supervised convergence of that organization’s broadcast and English-language Web site operations. She returned to the AP as a special editor in 2007. She assumed leadership of the Paris bureau in 2009.

A Connecticut native, Seward earned her bachelor’s degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1978, followed by graduate studies at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris.