ASC Hires Terry McCarthy as New CEO
He comes to the ASC with four Emmy awards and more than 30 years of experience in journalism, television and print media, and non-profit management.
The American Society of Cinematographers recently brought aboard Terry McCarthy as the new CEO. He will be heavily involved in all business matters relating to the Society — including events, education, publications and more — as well as American Cinematographer operations.
McCarthy comes to the ASC with more than 30 years of experience in journalism, television and print media, and non-profit management. Before joining the Society, he served as president of the American Academy in Berlin, and before that as president and CEO of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. Prior to that, he traveled throughout the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America as a reporter, covering political, military and societal issues.
Brought up in Ireland, McCarthy began his career as a freelance reporter in Central America before relocating to Bangkok and Tokyo where he was a foreign correspondent with the Independent newspaper of London. Then he moved to TIME magazine as their East Asia correspondent and Shanghai bureau chief before moving to California in 2000 to serve as TIME’s Los Angeles bureau chief. Immediately after 9/11, McCarthy went to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he reported on the ousting of the Taliban from Kabul. In 2003, he drove from Kuwait to Baghdad covering the US invasion of Iraq. In 2004 and 2005, he received Emmy awards for a joint ABC/TIME news series on Iraq. He set up TIME’s bureau offices in Kabul and Baghdad.
In 2006, McCarthy transitioned into television news, working as the main Baghdad correspondent for ABC News, where he covered the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein among other topics. In 2008, for his work on “Iraq: Where Things Stand,” from ABC’s World News Tonight with Charles Gibson, he won an Emmy for Best Story in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast from the News & Documentary Emmy Awards.
While serving as a correspondent for CBS News in 2010, McCarthy embedded with the 3rd Battalion 1st Marines in southern Afghanistan for “The Thundering Third,” part of the series “Afghanistan: The Road Ahead” on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. For his work, along with producer/cameraperson Randall Joyce, he earned a fourth Emmy as well as the Edward R. Murrow Award.
McCarthy speaks six languages — German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese in addition to some English. He and his wife Jennifer have four children, two German shepherds and many chewed up tennis balls.
