<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Associated Press (AP) probably publishes a story a day on topics related to retirement: Do this, do that, whatever you do, avoid doing XYZ. But Bob Dylan knows the right question to ask: \u201cHow does it feel, to be on your own?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can\u2019t say I know yet. Thirty-nine years of working with colleagues \u2014 as we try to make sense of wars, plane crashes, Olympics, elections, genocide, royal weddings, royal funerals, and even the 9\/11 terror attacks \u2014 has bonded me like superglue to these folks at AP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It will take a while to decompress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, at least for the AP\u2019s Europe team, we have been exhausted by two years of covering the coronavirus pandemic then a year of reporting on the war in Ukraine. The modern equivalent of the Black Death followed by Attila the Hun. The AP journalists on the ground have my utmost respect: covering death, fear, and sadness with a mystery virus, then walking through war crimes scenes, photographing mass graves, and talking to people with cigarette burns on their backs who were tortured by Russian soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even those of us just editing the text, videos, or photos have been traumatized to our core. We have read stories and seen videos and photos that cannot be unseen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the first order of retirement, I would like to sleep for a month, preferably without nightmares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would also like more time with my grandchildren, although I am not sure how wise that will be. The 1-year-old gave me COVID-19 in May and the 3-year-old doused me with RSV in October. I limped to the AP finish line coughing my lungs out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese people raised me,\u201d Ed Sheeran sings \u2014 and that\u2019s how I feel about my AP colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We have read stories and seen videos and photos that cannot be unseen.” <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n I came to AP\u2019s New York headquarters still wearing braids. There is an ocean between wanting to do great journalism and actually doing it. It took me years to climb AP\u2019s speed wall and send out breaking news in real time, with fingers and the brain flowing to distill momentous events to their essence. And always working as part of a team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, let\u2019s just also acknowledge that the good ole days weren\u2019t always so good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Long before the #MeToo era, some members of the sports department were making bets on my bra size, and then asking me for the answer to determine a winner. When I was in AP\u2019s corporate communications department and went to industry conferences to sell AP news equipment, I had to plant young technicians on either side of me at work dinners so I would not be pawed over by lecherous newspaper publishers. When a senior AP executive joked that AP would get better press coverage if I just slept with the editor of Editor & Publisher<\/em>, I fled corporate communications to AP\u2019s news side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was better, but not by a lot. At FIFA\u2019s glitzy annual gala in Zurich, where female sports reporters were as scarce as soccer officials not on the take, a senior FIFA official commented \u201cSie ist die H\u00fcndin von AP<\/em>\u201d (\u201cShe is the b**** from AP\u201d) as I walked past, unaware that I knew basic German.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I may carve that description on my grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And my working life included about 30 years of subpar managers, present one excluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A week after burying my first husband from cancer (no family leave laws yet), my boss put me on a six-day, 10-hour overnight shift for the 1991 Gulf War, starting the next day. When I protested, he said \u201cAP can\u2019t go around making exceptions for widows with toddlers.\u201d I thought that would be a good place to start. Still, I found a babysitter within hours and wrote AP\u2019s global war roundup for weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few years later, the same manager refused to give me my wedding day off. He gave the groom and five guests the day off, but I had the least seniority. I had to trade shifts with one of the few colleagues I did not invite and work eight overnight shifts in a row just to appear at my own wedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2014, I asked a vice president why no female editors were being sent to work at the Sochi Winter Olympics, where about half of the competitors were women. He told me that the men he was sending were \u201cvery diverse\u201d \u2014 from different countries and speaking different languages. Hmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How refreshing the situation is now. AP\u2019s management team involves a president, a managing editor, a Nerve Center leader, and Washington bureau chief who are all women; there is a growing awareness that overnight shifts are a highway to cancer; photographers and video folks are not second-class citizens anymore; and with the democratic effect of Zoom meetings, the opinions of younger staffers can reach up to top executives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My daughter and other 30-somethings are shocked at my stories. She asks, \u201cMom, why didn\u2019t you just leave?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The basic reason is that AP has one of the world\u2019s greatest mission statements: It brings unbiased news to the world. It\u2019s impossible not to be proud of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “My daughter and other 30-somethings are shocked at my stories.”<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n I also got to be involved in some of the world\u2019s biggest events. I co-wrote the breaking 9\/11 story, line by line, with contributions from dozens of folks \u2014 a 13-hour urgent series. I took dictation from a reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for covering genocide in Rwanda. I sent the news flash about Queen Elizabeth II dying, and happier stories about her grandsons\u2019 royal weddings. London\u2019s 2012 Summer Olympics was a joyous AP team effort that stretched far beyond the world of sports. Our \u201cDirty Game\u201d global investigation into match-fixing in soccer stands the test of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But despite my deep pride at being a part of AP, it was time to leave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I am older than I think I am, dammit. It\u2019s the blinders that we all wear, shaving 15 years off the actual clock. Working 10 days in a row, 20-hour stints for elections, 21-day marathons for Olympics, overnights topped off by a 75-minute commute are too much for me now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And the time ahead is too short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the spotlight must be on my family. I am more at peace with this change of the seasons than I ever thought I would be. I just had my AP Zoom retirement call and it was the sweetest hour ever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sheila Norman-Culp \u201980 retired at the end of 2022 after 39 years at The Associated Press. Along the way, she won an Associated Press Managing Editors feature writing award; worked in Cheyenne, New York, Zurich, and London; and mentored scores of journalists. From 2008\u201319, Colgate students in the London Study Group visited her at the AP\u2019s global TV newsroom, where Sheila Norman-Culp \u201980 reflects on her career working for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1260,"featured_media":11993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[657,1067,433,1065,1556,1121,1554,1553,123,1555],"coauthors":[1618],"class_list":["post-11992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-voices","tag-career","tag-editor","tag-journalism","tag-journalist","tag-london","tag-new-york","tag-press","tag-retirement","tag-writing","tag-zurich"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-37q","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/04\/121222-SheilaNormanCulp020Retouch.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1260"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11992"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12442,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11992\/revisions\/12442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11992"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
she taught them how news is made. She can be reached at snormanculp@ gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"