NEW YORK (AP) — Eric Carvin, an AP Nerve Center news producer and former National Desk editor, has been named the organization's social media editor, based at headquarters in New York.
Carvin will lead the AP's ongoing social media efforts, coordinating with all national and international regions, verticals and formats. He will work to ensure that social media becomes an integral part of every AP journalist's skills.
The appointment was announced Wednesday by Tamer Fakahany, the AP deputy managing editor who leads the Nerve Center.
For the past two years, Carvin has been a news producer at the Nerve Center, the central editorial desk at AP's headquarters. He has focused primarily on using social media to uncover breaking news, gather user-generated content, engage readers and promote AP stories and visuals. He also plays a central role in overseeing the AP news report more broadly.
Carvin has extensive experience with innovative and interactive storytelling methods. He managed and edited Meltdown 101, an award-winning series that sought to unravel the most complex aspects of the economic crisis, as well as Ask AP, a weekly column in which AP reporters around the globe answered readers' questions about the news.
Previously, he was a founding editor of asap, an AP service that pursued innovative and multimedia approaches to the news. During his time at asap, he oversaw and edited Far and Wide, AP's first news blog.
"No one can underestimate the power of social media in our global reportage, nor its potential pitfalls," Fakahany said. "That is why we wanted a social media editor who was a serious and respected journalist in his own right in addition to providing leadership on the social nets."
Carvin will be at the forefront of AP's company-wide efforts to mine social networks for verifiable content and story leads as well as driving numerous projects with major players in the industry.
Carvin, who graduated from Yale University in 1995, joined AP in 2000 as a news researcher after five years as a writer and editor for the Facts On File World News Digest. He became an AP National Desk editor later in 2000, and served for two election cycles as deputy coordinator of AP's exit poll analysis team.
While there has always been supervision of AP's news coverage from headquarters in New York City, the 25-member Nerve Center was formed two years ago to coordinate the work of field leaders who direct coverage in their areas.
It is also used as a site to experiment with new kinds of storytelling. It works closely with AP customers and uses social networks to discover fresh ways to engage readers and viewers.
Carvin tweets about news, social media and other topics at http://twitter.com/EricCarvin
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