Associated Press names veteran foreign correspondent Hugh Dellios news editor for Illinois

AP names Hugh Dellios news editor for Illinois

CHICAGO — Hugh Dellios, a veteran foreign correspondent who has reported from dozens of countries and led coverage from around the world as an editor, has been named news editor for Illinois at The Associated Press.

The appointment was announced Tuesday by Central Regional Editor David Scott.

Dellios, 48, joins the AP from the Chicago Tribune, where he was most recently an associate metro editor, overseeing coverage of issues ranging from immigration to science and medicine. He helped direct the Tribune’s coverage of swine flu, the Illinois National Guard’s mission in Afghanistan and the earthquake in Haiti.

“Illinois is a vital news state. In Hugh Dellios, we have found an editor with the experience and judgment to deliver on our promise of great coverage for the state and great coverage of the state for the world,” said Senior Managing Editor Mike Oreskes, who oversees AP’s domestic operation and all-formats daily news report.

Dellios began his career at the Tribune as a metro desk intern, and his early assignments at the paper included a stint as leg man for the paper’s famed columnist, Mike Royko. After two years at the state capital in Springfield, Dellios moved to Los Angeles as a national correspondent, where he covered immigration, natural resources and the O.J. Simpson trial.

From California, Dellios moved overseas, covering Africa from Johannesburg, the Middle East from Jerusalem and Latin America from Mexico City. From Qatar in 2003, he coordinated the coverage of two dozen reporters from Tribune Co. newspapers of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

He returned to Chicago in 2006 as the Tribune’s foreign editor, a post in which he directed a team of correspondents based around the globe and the newspaper’s ongoing coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Hugh’s deep knowledge of Chicago and Illinois, his extensive experience in covering a place for the world, and the wide respect he has earned from reporters as an editor make him the right choice for the job,” Scott said.

Dellios, who will be based in Chicago, graduated from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., in 1983. Before joining the Tribune, he worked at The Register in Yarmouth Port, Mass.