Maria Sanminiatelli named North America editor for Associated Press

Maria Sanminiatelli named AP North America editor

NEW YORK — Maria Sanminiatelli, a veteran journalist who has covered news for The Associated Press in Europe and the United States, has been named North America editor, responsible for U.S. news coverage targeted for audiences outside North America as well as Canada and the United Nations.

Sanminiatelli, who has been the acting North America editor for the past year, will lead a team of editors and reporters in New York, Toronto, Washington and at the U.N.

The appointment was announced Monday by Senior Managing Editor John Daniszewski, who oversees international news.

“Much news from the United States and Canada is highly relevant to readers in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Whether it is the president’s latest foreign-policy pronouncements, controversies across U.S. society involving religion, race, law or culture, or diplomatic news at the U.N., there is much that affects and fascinates the rest of the world,” said Daniszewski.

“As a skilled editor and reporter with an international perspective leading a team of such editors and reporters, Maria Sanminiatelli will be driven to provide an unparalleled report from North America for the global audience,” he said.

Aside from producing news of interest outside the United States, the North America desk works closely with the four U.S. regional desks in the United States and serves as the U.S. link in the AP’s global structure of international news — with other filing centers in London, Johannesburg, Cairo, Mexico City and Bangkok.

Sanminiatelli, 42, joined the AP in July 2000 in Richmond, Virginia. In 2002, she transferred to New York, where she worked on national and international editing desks. She was assigned to the Rome bureau in 2005, where she was part of the team that covered the papal transition following the death of Pope John Paul II.

She became a supervisor on the North America Desk in 2007 and is in her second stint as acting editor.

Sanminiatelli, a dual Italian and U.S. citizen, was born in New York and grew up in Italy. She is a graduate of the American University of Paris and has a master’s degree from the Columbia University journalism school. She has also worked for the International Herald-Tribune and The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Va.