By John Rogers | Associated Press
Andy Lippman, who became a beloved figure among the scores of reporters and editors he directed in covering many of the biggest news stories of the 20th and 21st centuries during a 38-year career with The Associated Press, has died at age 78.
Lippman, who recently moved from Southern California to be closer to family in Arizona, died at his home early Saturday, July 25, in Tucson, according to his brother, Glenn. He died from Multiple System Atrophy, a rare brain disease.
Both a gifted writer and editor, Lippman likely made his greatest contribution to journalism through the scores of young editors and reporters he recruited, mentored and shepherded in his soft-spoken but ebullient manner to accomplishments they would acknowledge later they hadn’t thought possible.
He did so as chief of AP bureaus in Louisville, Indianapolis and Los Angeles, the latter the AP’s second-largest domestic bureau and located in one of the world’s busiest news cities.
During his time there he oversaw the so-called Trial of the Century, when football legend O.J. Simpson was charged with and acquitted of killing his ex-wife and her friend, as well as the devastating 1994 Northridge earthquake that killed more than 70 people and caused about $20 billion in damage. Still another major story was that of the deadly 1992 Los Angeles riots that destroyed a huge swath of the city after four white police officers were acquitted of charges in the videotaped beating of Black motorist Rodney King.
”If you were in a lab and charged with creating a model bureau chief, your model could well be Andy Lippman,” said retired AP President and CEO Louis D. Boccardi, who appointed Lippman to lead the Los Angeles bureau. “He had it all – a sharp news sense, energy without limits, loyalty to, and appreciation for, his staff wherever we sent him, a passion to serve AP members that made the bond seem more like family than business, limitless enthusiasm, thoughtfulness in matters large and small, that was a hallmark of knowing Andy Lippman.”
He also had the rare ability to become friends with practically everybody he met, including those he worked with as well as those he supervised.
“Andy was indeed like a brother to me, from the time we met in 1982 as fellow AP bureau chiefs in adjoining states – Andy in Louisville and I in Indianapolis,” said retired AP bureau chief and regional vice president Paul Stevens, who now edits AP’s Connecting newsletter for retired journalists. “We became forever best friends. Our friendship spread to all members of the Stevens family. One year, he invited our then teenage daughters to join him as his guests for the Academy Awards program in Los Angeles. He came to family weddings. And we were there for each other in the tough times, including the deaths of our parents.”
Dozens of others shared similar sentiments in recent years at various gatherings, including AP’s annual dinner for retirees. At a recent farewell party in Los Angeles that Lippman was unable to attend because of illness, every one of the dozens of people in the room recorded video tributes.
Lippman, born April 29, 1948, in Bethesda, Md., and raised in suburban Maryland, was seemingly destined to be a journalist. He worked for his middle school newspaper and was editor of Bethesda’s Walter Johnson High School newspaper The Pitch his senior year.
“Working on The Pitch really kept me focused, and particularly being an editor really gave me a sense of responsibility,” he told the newspaper in 2016.
He started writing “for pay” at the age of 15 covering high school sports for the Washington Daily News on weekends, and when he arrived in Los Angeles in the late 1980s, he made sure every reporter or editor knew how to cover a sports event, just in case they got pressed into service during an emergency.
After graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in 1970, Lippman landed a vacation relief job at the AP’s Phoenix bureau in 1971. A year later he became a permanent member of the Tucson staff before moving to AP’s sports desk in New York, then on to Cincinnati, where he was an AP correspondent. Then it was on to Louisville.
Throughout his career, sports-related coverage seemed to keep creeping back into his work life. More than a dozen years after Simpson was acquitted of murder, Lippman was still running the Los Angeles bureau when the football great was convicted of kidnapping, assault and other charges as part of a bungled plot to steal back sports memorabilia he said was stolen from him. In 1991 Lippman pressed his sports writers to confirm word, which they did, that Los Angeles Lakers superstar Magic Johnson was about to announce his retirement after contracting the AIDS virus. Coincidentally, Lippman had reported on Johnson’s on-court rival and close friend Larry Bird during his time in Indianapolis.
Plagued with various health issues in his later years, Lippman took medical retirement from the AP in 2007, but never lost touch with the company, showing up at various bureau events, sometimes with home-baked pies or other food, just as he had done as bureau chief for people who had to work during the holidays. In 2005, the AP honored him with the Oliver S. Gramling Spirit Award, given to staff members who display dedication, courage, and exceptional support for the news agency’s mission.
He also continued to help others in any way he could, teaching English to immigrants and helping about 75 holding Green Cards prepare for their tests to become U.S. citizens. In 2022 the Puente Learning Center in east Los Angeles named Lippman its Volunteer of the Year, an honor accompanied by a proclamation from the California Legislative Assembly.
He also never really quit journalism. For eight years, until last December, he wrote a weekly column for the South Pasadena Review, the local newspaper for the close-knit suburb just north of Los Angeles that in his final years Lippman had grown to love.
Lippman served in the U.S. Army Reserves for six years beginning in 1970.
Plans for a celebration of life are pending, and Lippman’s family says he will be cremated, and some of his ashes will be placed in Ravello, Italy; Colonial Williamsburg; Indiana, and South Pasadena. His survivors include his sister-in-law, Nancy Newberry, and brother Glenn, as well as many extended family members, and his beloved rescue dog, Scout.
Editor’s note: Rogers is a retired Associated Press reporter.