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The Associated Press
File:Associated Press logo.png
Company typeNon-profit cooperative
IndustryNews media
FoundedNew York City, 1846
HeadquartersNew York City
Area servedWorldwide
Key peopleTom Curley, President and CEO
ProductsWire service
RevenueIncrease $654,186,000 USD 2005
Operating incomeIncrease $17,959,000 USD 2005
Net incomeIncrease $18,528,000 USD 2005
Number of employees3,700
Websiteap.org

The Associated Press, or AP, is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staffers. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to use AP material without being contributive members of the cooperative.

As of 2005, the AP's news is published and republished by more than 1,700 newspapers, in addition to more than 5,000 television and radio broadcasters. The cooperative's photograph library consists of more than 10 million images. It operates 243 news bureaus and serves 121 countries, with a diverse international staff drawing from all over the world.

As part of their cooperative agreement with the Associated Press, most member news organizations grant automatic permission for the AP to distribute their local news reports. For example, on page two of every edition of The Washington Post, the newspaper's masthead includes the statement, "The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to use for republication of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this paper and all local news of spontaneous origin published herein."

The AP Stylebook has become the de facto standard for newswriting in the United States. The AP employs a straightforward, "just-the-facts" writing style, often using the "inverted pyramid formula" for writing that enables news outlets to edit a story to fit its available publication space without losing the story's essential meaning and news information.

The demise of AP's traditional rival, United Press International, as a major American competitor in 1993 left the AP as the only nationally oriented news service based in the United States. Its other rival English-language news services, such as Reuters and the English language service of Agence France-Presse, are based outside the United States.

The explosive growth of online media and news outlets upon the arrival of the Internet has posed a threat to the AP's financial structure. During its annual meeting on April 18, 2005, the organization announced that, as of 2006, it would for the first time begin charging separate fees for posting articles and images online. News outlets that purchased AP news, sports, business and entertainment coverage for traditional publication or broadcast previously had been allowed to also post that material online at no extra cost. The cooperative later backed down from this plan and, in a bid to reach more readers, launched asap, a service aimed toward 18- to 34-year-olds. The targeted service was discontinued in October 2007. .

AP's American employees, except for a small group classified by the organization as administrative, are represented by the News Media Guild and the Communication Workers of America.

History

The AP was formed in May 1846 by a group of American newspapers that sought to pool resources in order to better collect and report news coming from Europe. Prior to this, the newspapers had competed by sending reporters out in rowboats to meet ships bringing news from Europe as they arrived in the harbor. The owners of these newspapers realized that they were all paying for essentially the same information and determined it would be more cost effective to have a service collect and pay for all the information once via telegraph. Their new organization originally was named the Harbor News Association; it later was renamed the Associated Press. A driving force in the organization's formation was Moses Yale Beach, publisher of the New York Sun, when he invited other New York publishers to join the Sun in a cooperative venture to cover the Mexican-American War. The four New York papers that joined in the agreement with the Sun were the Journal of Commerce, the Courier and Enquirer, the Herald, and the Express.

AP Sports Polls

Main article: AP Poll
The Associated Press Building in New York City. (The AP moved from this building in 2004.)

The AP is known for its Associated Press polls on numerous college sports in the United States. The AP polls ranking the top 25 NCAA Division I (Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision) college football and NCAA Division I men's and women's college basketball teams are the most well known. The AP composes the polls by collecting and compiling the top-25 votes of numerous designated sports journalists. The AP poll of college football was particularly notable for many years because it helped determine the ranking of teams at the end of the regular season for the collegiate Bowl Championship Series until the AP, citing conflict of interest, asked for the poll to be removed from the bowl series. Beginning in the 2005 season, the Harris Interactive College Football Poll took the AP's place in the bowl series formula. The AP poll is the longest serving national poll in college football, having begun in 1936.

Each year on the 31st of March the AP announces the winner of the NCAA Men's basketball "player of the year" (POY) award.

Associated Press Television News

In 1994, London-based Associated Press Television (APTV) was founded to provide agency news material to television broadcasters. Other existing providers of such material at the time were Reuters Television and Worldwide Television News (WTN).

In 1998, APTV left the Associated Press building in the Central London and merged with WTN to create Associated Press Television News(APTN) in the existing WTN building in North London.

Controversies

Jamil Hussein

Main article: Jamil Hussein controversy

Some questions were raised about the legitimacy of police captain Jamil Hussein as a source for AP reporting of sectarian violence in Iraq. On January 4, 2007 the Iraqi Interior Ministry recognized Jamil as an active member of the Baghdad police force, and said he faces arrest for talking to journalists. Ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied the existence of Hussein, acknowledged that the officer was assigned to the Khadra police station..

Christopher Newton

The Associated Press fired Washington, D.C. bureau reporter Christopher Newton in September 2002, accusing him of fabricating at least 40 people and organizations since 2000. Some of the nonexistent agencies quoted in his stories included "Education Alliance," the "Institute for Crime and Punishment in Chicago," "Voice for the Disabled," and "People for Civil Rights."

Governance

The Associated Press is governed by an elected board of directors.

Web resource

The AP's multi-topic structure has lent itself well to web portals, such as Yahoo, msn.com, etc, which all have news pages which constantly need to be updated. Often, such portals will rely on AP and other news services as their first source for news coverage of breaking news items. Yahoo's "Top News" page gives the AP top visibility out of any news outlet. This has been of major impact to the AP's public image and role, as it gives new credence to the AP's continual mission of having staff for covering every area of news fully and promptly. The AP is also the news service used on the Nintendo Wii's News Channel.

See also

References

  1. ^ Pyle, Richard (2005-01-31). "19th-century papers shed new light on origin of The Associated Press" (Press release). Associated Press. {{cite press release}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ "Consolidated Financial Statements, The Associated Press and Subsidiaries: Years ended December 31, 2005 and 2004" (PDF). Associated Press. 2006-03-07. Retrieved 2006-10-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)]
  3. "9/11 attacks harm First Amendment" AP, 08 March 2008
  4. "Iraq threatens arrest of police officer" AP, 04 January 2007
  5. {{cite web url=http://www.slate.com/?id=2073304 date=Oct. 29, 2002 title=Slate.com }}

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