Associated Press Totally Explained

Everything about Associated Press totally explained

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. (External Link

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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

AP Sports Polls

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 31 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

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.

William Dean Singleton, Chairman and CEO, MediaNews Group, Denver, Colorado

Tom Curley, President & CEO

R. Jack Fishman, Publisher and Managing editor, Citizen Tribune, Morristown, Tennessee

Dennis J. FitzSimons, Chairman President and CEO, Tribune Company, Chicago, Illinois

Walter E. Hussman Jr., Publisher, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock, Arkansas

Julie Inskeep, Publisher, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Indiana

Boisfeuillet (Bo) Jones, Publisher and CEO, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.

Mary Junck, President and CEO, Lee Enterprises, Davenport, Iowa

David Lord, President, Pioneer Newspapers, Seattle, Washington

Kenneth W. Lowe, President and CEO, E.W. Scripps Company, Cincinnati, Ohio

Douglas H. McCorkindale, Chairman, Gannett, MacLean, Virginia

R. John Mitchell, Publisher, Rutland Herald, Rutland, Vermont

Steven O. Newhouse, Chairman, Advance.Net, New York, New York

Gary Pruitt, Chairman, President and CEO, The McClatchy Company, Sacramento, California

Michael E. Reed, CEO, Liberty Group Publishing, Inc., Downer's Grove, Illinois

Bruce T. Reese, President and CEO, Bonneville International, Salt Lake City, Utah

Jon Rust, Publisher, Southeast Missourian, Cape Girardeau, Missouri

Jay R. Smith, President, Cox Newspapers, Atlanta, Georgia

David Westin, President, ABC News, New York, New York

H. Graham Woodlief, President, Publishing Division, Media General, Richmond, Virginia (External Link

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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. In 2007 Google announced it was paying for Associated Press content displayed in Google News.

Further Information

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