As the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games is bringing more nations and athletes together, the Associated Press (AP) is sending its largest staff contingent of more than 300 members to China with a "much heavier emphasis on multimedia coverage," Thomas Curley, president and chief executive officer of AP, told Xinhua on Monday.
In an exclusive interview only a few hours before his departure for Beijing, Curley said, "we have more than 300 people who will be there in Beijing or at the other venues and cities outside Beijing."
"This is by far our largest staff contingent," he said, "so we will be doing several things differently, a much heavier emphasis on multimedia coverage and that will be a hallmark of these events."
There will be more content on the Internet, more photos, and more interactive videos from the AP coverage of the Beijing Olympic Games, Curley said.
The New York-based AP, according to its website, is a not-for-profit news cooperative of U.S. newspapers and broadcasters and provides more than 15,000 media outlets worldwide and thousands of commercial customers with news stories, photographs, audio, video and multimedia online products.
Explaining why AP decided to send its largest team to cover the games, Curley said, "This Olympics will be more interesting" and also multimedia coverage "seems to take more journalists."
"Part of it is multimedia and of course part of it is just the nature of the games. Now these are the biggest games, more countries, more athletes and the rise of women athletes too," he said, "that all has added to the number of events."
Curley said there also will be a lot of cultural coverage, because" China fascinates Americans in particular", and many people are interested to "connect with the modern China and understand where it is going."
"Music, culture, art and all the aspects of the Olympics. It's much more than sport", said Curley, who began his journalism career at age 15 covering high school basketball for hometown Easton (Pa.) Express and became head of AP on June 1, 2003.