Longtime AP Alaska bureau chief Dean Fosdick dies at age 80

By MARK THIESSEN
Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Dean Fosdick, the journalist with The Associated Press who filed the news alert informing the world of the Exxon Valdez grounding, has died. Fosdick died April 27 in Florida. He was 80. His long career with the news service included 15 years as the bureau chief in Alaska. He began his career with the AP in the Nashville, Tennessee, bureau in 1978, and became the head of the Alaska bureau in 1985. Jim Clarke, who is now AP’s managing director of local markets, was hired by Fosdick in 1993. Clarke says Fosdick was a steady force in Alaska journalism for more than a decade.