09/08/2004

Porter, AP bureau chief for Louisiana, adds oversight of Mississippi

NEW YORK -- Charlotte Porter, chief of bureau for The Associated Press in Louisiana, will add Mississippi to her responsibilities under a restructuring of the news agency's management.
Porter has been based in New Orleans since 1994, when the two states were part of a single AP territory. Mississippi was later set up as its own AP operation.

Frank Fisher, who had been bureau chief for Mississippi, recently was named chief of bureau in Des Moines, Iowa.

The appointment was announced Aug. 31 by Tom Brettingen, senior vice president for Newspaper & New Media Markets.

Porter grew up in Lenoir, N.C. She joined the AP in Minneapolis in 1976 and covered three legislative sessions in South Dakota before transferring to the National Desk in New York in 1979. In 1988, she was named news editor in Atlanta, and also served there as assistant chief of bureau until her appointment to oversee AP operations in Arizona in
1991.

She is a graduate of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., and a member of the Louisiana Press Association's Freedom of Information committee.