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LONDON (AP) — The Associated Press has named Kate de Pury, an award-winning journalist with more than 15 years' experience in video newsgathering, as its news director for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
De Pury, who has spent many years working in Russia, will lead AP's video, text and photo report across one-seventh of the earth's surface, stretching from the Baltics to Central Asia. She will take up her position at the end of the year, based in Moscow and reporting to AP's London-based Europe News Director, Caro Kriel, whom she also replaces in Moscow.
Her appointment to one of AP's key international posts is part of a wider strategy by the news cooperative to create leadership roles that span all the formats in which the agency reports news.
"Kate is a first-class journalist who knows the Russia story and brings a wealth of experience and enthusiasm to the job," Kriel said Monday. "She is an accomplished leader both in coverage of Russia and in video journalism, a winning combination for AP in the region."
De Pury, 55, previously helped pioneer AP's premium live news service, and is returning to the company after nine years with Reuters.
She first traveled to Moscow in the late 1980s as an exchange student at the Moscow Film School VGIK, and went on to cover the breakup of the Soviet Union; conflicts in Chechnya, Moldova and the Caucasus; the evolving Russian political story and the development of independent states — including Ukraine — in the former Soviet sphere.
She headed the Reuters video operation in Moscow from 2008-12, winning the Reuters Video Story of the Year award for her team's coverage of the Russia-Georgia War. De Pury led that team through coverage of ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan, unrest in Belarus and the growth of an opposition movement in Russia itself after December 2010 elections.
From 2003-05, de Pury worked at AP's global video headquarters in London as content manager of AP Direct in the first years of the AP's premium live news service. Recently, she has led the team that developed and launched Reuters' online streaming service.
De Pury, a British national, holds a bachelor's degree in French and drama from Bristol University and a master's in film art from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is fluent in French and Russian.
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