Boccardi, Louis D.

Louis D. Boccardi, president and chief executive officer of Associated Press, has been elected chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board. His selection was announced by President George Rupp. Columbia University awards the annual prizes on the board's recommendation.

Boccardi has been president and chief executive officer of Associated Press, the world's largest news organization, since 1985. Prior to assuming the presidency, he served one year as executive vice president and chief operating officer and 10 years as executive editor in charge of AP's news operations.

Born in New York City, Boccardi holds a B.A. degree from Fordham College and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia. He joined the AP as executive assistant to the general news editor in 1967 after eight years with New York newspapers, during which he rose to the position of assistant managing editor of the World-Telegram and Sun and its successor newspaper, The World Journal Tribune. He was appointed AP managing editor in 1969, executive editor in 1973 and vice president in 1975.

In 1990 Boccardi was elected a fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, the highest honor SPJ awards journalists for public service. He has received the William Allen White Foundation Award for Journalistic Merit, the Overseas Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Award and was elected a Distinguished Service Member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Boccardi and the AP were awarded the 2001 John Peter and Anna Catherine Zenger award for Freedom of the Press and the Public's Right to Know.

Boccardi is a member of the national advisory board of the Freedom Forum Center for Media Studies, the board of trustees of the Newseum, and the board of visitors of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, and is an honorary trustee of the William Allen White Foundation at the University of Kansas.

Elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board in 1994, Boccardi succeeds Edward Seaton, editor in chief of The Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury, who has retired from the board after having served as chair. Members of the board serve a maximum of nine years.

Columbia University press elease published May 08, 2001