Andrew B. Davis Named New President and Executive Director of the American Press Institute

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Reston, VA - Andrew B. Davis, director of innovation and business development for the Media Management Center at Northwestern University, will step into the position of president and executive director of the American Press Institute on December 1, 2003. Davis assumes the mantle from William L. Winter, Ph.D., who was API's president and executive director from 1987 to Oct. 1, 2003.

"Drew Davis brings to API a career of exceptional accomplishments as a journalist, an educator and an innovative leader," said George Irish, president of Hearst Newspapers, senior vice president of The Hearst Corporation and chairman of API's Board of Directors. "The board has great confidence that he will build on the strong foundation created by Bill Winter and his predecessors."

"Bill Winter did a sensational job in developing and strengthening API over the last 16 years," said Davis. "I look forward to building on that legacy and working with the API staff in taking the Institute to even greater levels of support to the newspaper industry."

At the Media Management Center, where Davis has been as adjunct professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism since 1996, he was responsible for industry-specific seminars for magazine, broadcast television and cable executives. He concentrated his research activities on media innovation and new-product management, and is the author of the MMC publication Rx for New Product Success. He has worked with numerous media companies, including the Tribune Company, the Hearst Corporation, Times Mirror Magazines, Crain Communications, the National Association of Broadcasters, A&E Network and the Cable Television Association for Marketing (CTAM). He is an annual presenter at the Scandinavian International Management Institute program for World Association of Newspapers member executives.

A brigadier general in the Marine Corps Reserve, Davis took leave from the Media Management Center between July 2001 and July 2003 to serve as director of Marine Corps Public Affairs at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. In that role he was chief spokesman for the Marine Corps and was a leader in the training and embedding of journalists with combat troops in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Prior to joining the Media Management Center, Davis was president of Chicago
Sun-Times Features, Inc., a division of The Sun-Times Company, and of
Performance Media, a custom publishing division he conceived and developed into
a multi-million-dollar venture. He also was vice-president of the Sun-Times
Company, with responsibility for new business development and project
leadership.

He holds a bachelor's degree cum laude in English literature from Princeton
University and a master's degree with distinction in journalism from
Northwestern University's Medill School. After active duty as an infantry
officer in the U.S. Marines, including service in Vietnam, he began his
newspaper career as a reporter with Copley Press. He covered state and local
politics for Copley News Service in Illinois and reported from Washington on the
Nixon resignation. He was managing editor of eight award-winning newspapers
serving suburban Chicago, and creator and publisher of BIZ, a business magazine
for companies in emerging high-density suburban office corridors. For 10 years
he was group publisher and newspaper operations vice-president of Pioneer
Newspapers, a 41-newspaper group based in suburban Chicago.

Davis attended API's Executive Development Program and a seminar for weekly
advertising executives.

He is married to Margaret Bergan Davis, a consultant to nonprofit
organizations for fundraising and strategy. They have two daughters.

About the American Press Institute

The American Press Institute is an independent, not-for-profit 501c(3)
educational center with headquarters in Reston, Virginia. Founded in 1946 as the
leadership-development and skills-training arm of the news industry, the
Institute offers about three dozen weeklong residential seminars annually for
professionals in all newspaper departments. More than 35,000 women and men from
all newspaper departments -- from broadcast and new-media operations, and from
magazines and schools of journalism -- have attended these programs. The
Institute also offers training online; operates an Extended Learning Center that
develops intensive on-site educational programs for individual media companies,
and conducts special Issues Forums concerning key operating problems and
opportunities as they arise on the media landscape. In addition, API's Media
Center is a worldwide leader in helping the news industry devise strategies and
tactics for improving online content and revenues and the Donald W. Reynolds National
Center for Business Journalism at API offers free one-day workshops to
train journalists to cover business issues.

Media Contact:
Carol Ann Riordan

Vice President of Programming and Personnel

(703) 715-3315

criordan@americanpressinstitute.org