Anthony, Ted 1968(?)–

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Anthony, Ted 1968(?)–

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1968, in Pittsburgh, PA; married; children: two sons. Education: Graduated from Pennsylvania State University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Montclair, NJ. Office—Associated Press Headquarters, 450 W. 33rd St., New York, NY 10001.

CAREER:

Writer, editor. Patriot-News, Harrisburg, PA, staff member, 1990-92; Associated Press, Charleston, WV, staff member, 1992-96, Philadelphia, PA, international news desk, national writer, 1996-2001, Beijing, China, writer, 2001-02, news editor, 2002-04, New York, NY, news service for younger readers, Baghdad, Iraq, interim news editor, April-May, 2003, 2005—, editor of ASAP.

AWARDS, HONORS:

John L. Dougherty Award, for excellence for Associated Press reporters early in their careers, 1994, National Headliner Award, for feature writing, 2001.

WRITINGS:

Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ted Anthony graduated from Pennsylvania State University and immediately began his career as a journalist, taking a position with the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Patriot-News. After two years with the newspaper, he moved on and began working for the Associated Press, initially out of Charleston, West Virginia. He gradually moved up through the ranks, landing at the Philadelphia bureau, at the international desk, and eventually becoming a national writer in 1996. His work took him abroad for several assignments, where he reported from Beijing, China, as news editor, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan in the wake of the September eleventh attacks in New York and Washington, DC. He also spent two months reporting from Baghdad as the interim Iraq news editor. Anthony has earned a number of awards for his writing, including a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, first in 1998, and then again in 2001. In 1994, he earned the John L. Dougherty Award, a prize that goes to Associated Press reporters to honor outstanding achievement during the early part of their careers. Also, in 2001, he was awarded the National Headliner Award for feature writing.

Anthony's first book, Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song, stems from in-depth research that he did regarding ‘The House of the Rising Sun,’ a song best know in its rendition by the 1960s rock group The Animals, though it has also been recorded by such singers as Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and Josh White. While the song itself is well known as a standard folk piece, Anthony discovered that its roots may go back as far as the seventeenth century, and traced it to the English ballad tradition that was brought over to the United States and became strongly entrenched in the songs of the South, particularly those sung by the poorer members of the population. Anthony traveled throughout the southeast to research the origins of the song's music and lyrics, visiting the Ozarks and Appalachia in particular, and conducted numerous interviews. The resulting book mixes anecdote with scholarship. John Helling, writing for the Library Journal, remarked: ‘This meticulously researched and extremely accessible book could easily be used for recreational reading.’ A reviewer for Publishers Weekly was less impressed, calling the book ‘an uneasy mix of memoir, dissertation-like detail …, journalistic feature writing, and esoteric trivia.’ Booklist reviewer June Sawyers noted an inconsistency in Anthony's writing style over the course of the book, but concluded that ‘the tale he tells remains fascinating, especially for enthusiasts of traditional songs, folklore, and folk music."