AP's John Daniszewski named to Pulitzer board

NEW YORK (AP) -- John Daniszewski, a top editor and vice president at The Associated Press with decades-long experience covering international news, has been named to the Pulitzer Prize Board, which awards the most prestigious prizes in journalism.

Columbia University, which oversees the prizes, made the announcement Wednesday.

"I am delighted and honored to join the board and look forward to the opportunity to participate in the review of so much tremendous work in journalism and the fine arts," Daniszewski said.

Daniszewski was named in 2009 as AP's vice president and senior managing editor for international news, overseeing more than 500 editors and reporters around the world. He has spent more than 30 years in journalism, and has covered news in more than 70 countries.

Daniszewski, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, joined the AP in 1979 and went overseas to Poland in 1987. In 1993, he was named as bureau chief in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He left the AP in 1996 for the Los Angeles Times, serving as bureau chief in Cairo, Moscow and London, and remaining in Baghdad during the Iraq war to cover the U.S. invasion. He returned to AP as international editor in 2006 and was named a managing editor in 2007.

In his current role, Daniszewski has played a major part in the AP's opening of a bureau in Pyongyang, North Korea, in 2012, the first full-time bureau from a Western news organization.

The Pulitzer board is made up of 19 members, two of whom are non-voting. Members serve up to nine years, in three-year terms.

Daniszewski replaces Steve Coll, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who will become a non-voting member of the board when he takes over as the dean of Columbia's journalism school.

AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll served on the board from 2003 to 2012.

The Pulitzers are given out annually for journalism as well as the arts. This year's winners were announced in April. The prizes will be awarded May 30.