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The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. Founded in 1846, it operates as a
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...
,
unincorporated association Unincorporated association refers to a group of people in common law jurisdictions—such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand—who organize around a shared purpose without forming a corporation or similar legal entity. Unlike in some ...
, and produces news reports that are distributed to its members, major U.S. daily newspapers and radio and television broadcasters. Since the award was established in 1917, the AP has earned 59
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
s, including 36 for photography. The AP is also known for its widely used '' AP Stylebook'', its AP polls tracking NCAA sports, sponsoring the
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
's annual awards, and its election polls and results during US elections. By 2016, news collected by the AP was published and republished by more than 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters. The AP operates 235 news bureaus in 94 countries, and publishes in English, Spanish, and Arabic. It also operates the AP Radio Network, which provides twice hourly newscasts and daily sportscasts for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to use AP material without being contributing members of the cooperative. As part of their cooperative agreement with the AP, most member news organizations grant automatic permission for the AP to distribute their local news reports.


History

The Associated Press was formed in May 1846 by five daily newspapers in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
to share the cost of transmitting news of the Mexican–American War. The venture was organized by Moses Yale Beach (1800–68), second publisher of '' The Sun'', joined by the '' New York Herald'', the '' New York Courier and Enquirer'', '' The Journal of Commerce'', and the '' New York Evening Express''. Some historians believe that the '' New-York Tribune'' joined at this time; documents show it was a member in 1849. ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' became a member in September 1851. Initially known as the New York Associated Press (NYAP), the organization faced competition from the Western Associated Press (1862), which criticized its monopolistic news gathering and price setting practices. An investigation completed in 1892 by Victor Lawson, editor and publisher of the '' Chicago Daily News'', revealed that several principals of the NYAP had entered into a secret agreement with United Press, a rival organization, to share NYAP news and the profits of reselling it. The revelations led to the demise of the NYAP and in December 1892, the Western Associated Press was incorporated in Illinois as the Associated Press. A 1900
Illinois Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Illinois is the state supreme court, the highest court of the judiciary of Illinois. The court's authority is granted in Article VI of the current Illinois Constitution, which provides for seven justices elected from the fiv ...
decision (''Inter Ocean Publishing Co. v. Associated Press'') holding that the AP was a
public utility A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and ...
and operating in restraint of trade resulted in the AP's move from Chicago to New York City, where corporation laws were more favorable to cooperatives. Melville Stone, who had founded the ''Chicago Daily News'' in 1875, served as AP general manager from 1893 to 1921. The AP adopted teletype for its New York service in 1914. The cooperative grew rapidly under the leadership of Kent Cooper, who served from 1925 to 1948 and who built up bureau staff in South America, Europe and (after World War II), the Middle East. Under Kent Cooper, the AP became a more prevalent member of a press agency cartel made up of Reuters and
Havas Havas NV () is a French multinational corporation, multinational advertising agency, advertising and public relations company, with its registered office and head office in Puteaux, France. Havas operates in more than 100 countries. The group ...
(now Agence France-Presse). He lobbied for the renegotiation of the tripartite contract binding the agencies and their respective news markets at the League of Nations in 1927, attempting to give the AP a more important place in competition with Reuters. In 1935, the AP launched the Wirephoto network, which allowed transmission of news photographs over leased private telephone lines on the day they were taken. This gave the AP a major advantage over other news media outlets. While the first network was only between New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, eventually the AP had its network across the whole United States. In 1945, the
Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
held in '' Associated Press v. United States'' that the AP had been violating the Sherman Antitrust Act by prohibiting member newspapers from selling or providing news to nonmember organizations as well as making it very difficult for nonmember newspapers to join the AP. The AP entered the broadcast field in 1941 when it began distributing news to radio stations; it created its own radio network in 1974. In 1994, it established APTV, a global video newsgathering agency. APTV merged with Worldwide Television News in 1998 to form APTN, which provides video to international broadcasters and websites. In 2004, the AP moved its headquarters from its long time home at 50 Rockefeller Plaza to 450 West 33rd Street in Manhattan. In 2019, AP had more than 240 bureaus globally. Its mission—"to gather with economy and efficiency an accurate and impartial report of the news"—has not changed since its founding, but digital technology has made the distribution of the AP news report an interactive endeavor between the AP and its 1,400 U.S. newspaper members as well as broadcasters, international subscribers, and online customers. The AP began diversifying its news gathering capabilities. By 2007 the AP was generating only about 30% of its revenue from United States newspapers, and by 2024, this had declined to 10%. 37% came from the global broadcast customers, 15% from online ventures and 18% came from international newspapers and from photography. In March 2024,
Gannett Gannett Co., Inc. ( ) is an American mass media holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation. It owns the national newspaper ''USA Today'', as well as several ...
, the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation, announced that effective March 25, 2024, it would no longer use content from the AP. A spokesperson for AP said that they were "shocked and disappointed" by this development. Newspaper chain McClatchy announced that it would also stop using some AP services. Gannett and McClatchy will both continue to use AP's election results data.


Web resources

The AP's multi-topic structure has resulted in web portals such as
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and MSN posting its articles, often relying on the AP as their first source for news coverage of breaking news items. This and the constant updating evolving stories require has had a major impact on the AP's public image and role, giving new credence to the AP's ongoing mission of having staff for covering every area of news fully and promptly. In 2007, Google announced that it was paying to receive AP content, to be displayed in Google News, interrupted from late 2009 to mid-2010 due to a licensing dispute. A 2017 study by NewsWhip revealed that AP content was more engaged with on
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
than content from any individual English-language publisher.


Nonprofit

In June 2024, Axios reported that the AP would be launching a nonprofit with the goal of expanding state and local news, hoping to raise $100 million.


Timeline

* 1849: The Harbor News Association opened the first news bureau outside the United States in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to meet ships sailing from Europe before they reached dock in New York. * 1876: Mark Kellogg, a stringer, was the first AP news correspondent to be killed while reporting the news, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. * 1893: Melville E. Stone became the general manager of the reorganized the AP, a post he held until 1921. Under his leadership, the AP grew to be one of the world's most prominent news agencies. * 1899: The AP used
Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquess of Marconi ( ; ; 25 April 1874 – 20 July 1937) was an Italian electrical engineer, inventor, and politician known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegraphy, wireless tel ...
's wireless
telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...
to cover the America's Cup yacht race off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, the first news test of the new technology. * 1914: The AP introduced the teleprinter, which transmitted directly to printers over telegraph wires. Eventually a worldwide network of 60-word-per-minute teleprinter machines is built. * 1935: The AP initiated WirePhoto, the world's first wire service for photographs. The first photograph to transfer over the network depicted an airplane crash in Morehouse, New York, on New Year's Day, 1935. * 1938: The AP expanded new offices at 50 Rockefeller Plaza (known as "50 Rock") under an agreement made as part of the construction of Rockefeller Center in New York City. The building would remain its headquarters for 66 years. * 1941: The AP expanded from print to radio broadcast news. * 1941: Wide World News Photo Service purchased from ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''. *1943: The AP sends Ruth Cowan Nash to cover the deployment of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps to
Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
. Nash is the first American woman war correspondent."Go to War I Did, and at Considerable Trouble"
Ramirez, Maria. Nieman Reports, Nieman Foundation at Harvard.
* 1945: AP war correspondent Joseph Morton was executed along with nine OSS men and four British SOE agents by the Germans at Mauthausen concentration camp. Morton was the only Allied correspondent to be executed by the Axis during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. That same year, AP
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
bureau chief Edward Kennedy defied an Allied headquarters news blackout to report
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
's surrender, touching off a bitter episode that led to his eventual dismissal by the AP. Kennedy maintains that he reported only what German radio already had broadcast. * 1951: AP war correspondent
Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
bureau chief William N. Oatis was arrested for
espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...
by the Communist government of
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
. He was not released until 1953. * 1974: The AP launches the Associated Press Radio Network headquartered in Washington, D.C. * 1987: The AP switches to color photography completely after the public suicide of American politician R. Budd Dwyer. * 1994: The AP launches APTV, a global video news gathering agency, headquartered in London. * 2004: The AP moves its headquarters from 50 Rock to 450 West 33rd Street, New York City. * 2006: The AP joins
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
. * 2008: The AP launched AP Mobile (initially known as the AP Mobile News Network), a multimedia news portal that gives users news they can choose and provides anytime access to international, national and local news. The AP was the first to debut a dedicated iPhone application in June 2008 on stage at Apple's WWDC event. The app offered AP's own worldwide coverage of breaking news, sports, entertainment, politics and business as well as content from more than 1,000 AP members and third-party sources.Associated Press (2009-05-21)
"AP Mobile rings in one-year anniversary"
, ''AP'', Press Release.
*2008: The AP opens its Pyongyang bureau. * 2010: The AP launched multi-device World Cup Soccer Applications providing real-time news coverage of the 2010 World Cup on desktop, Apple and Android devices. * 2010: AP earnings fall 65% from 2008 to just $8.8million. The AP also announced that it would have posted a loss of $4.4million had it not liquidated its German-language news service for $13.2million. * 2011: AP revenue dropped $14.7million in 2010. 2010 revenue totaled $631million, a decline of 7% from the previous year. The AP rolled out price cuts designed to help newspapers and broadcasters cope with declining revenue. * 2012: Gary B. Pruitt succeeded Tom Curley to become president and CEO. Pruitt is the 13th leader of the AP in its 166-year history. * 2016: The AP reported that income dropped to $1.6million from $183.6million in 2015. The 2015 profit figure was bolstered by a one-time, $165million tax benefit. * 2017: The AP moved its headquarters to 200 Liberty Street, New York City. * 2018: The AP unveiled AP Votecast to replace exit polls for the 2018 US midterm elections.


Governance

The AP is governed by an elected board of directors. Since April 2022, the chairperson is Gracia C. Martore, former president and CEO of Tegna, Inc.


Conditions of reporting

With its more than 100 regional offices, AP also reports from countries where press freedom is restricted, sometimes under adverse circumstances.


United States First Amendment lawsuit

In 2025, restrictions preventing AP reporting in the U.S. were imposed by the second Trump administration. In February 2025, two AP reporters were barred from covering several events at the White House, because of the AP refusal to refer to the
Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...
as the "Gulf of America", as directed by the White House. The restrictions against AP were extended to other reporting opportunities such as in Air Force One. On February 21, 2025, the AP sued the Trump administration in '' Associated Press v. Budowich'' for blocking their attendance. On February 24, 2025, a federal judge declined to issue an immediate order compelling the White House to reinstate access to presidential events to AP, although he encouraged the White House to do so. Following the decision, the White House released a statement asserting that "the ability to pose questions to the President of the United States in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One constitutes a privilege extended to journalists, rather than a legally enshrined right." On April 8, 2025, Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that the White House must lift the access restrictions they placed on the AP while the ''AP v. Budowich'' lawsuit moves forward.


Election polls

The AP is one of two organizations that collect and verify election results in every city and county across the United States, including races for the U.S. president, the Senate and House of Representatives, and governors as well as other statewide offices. Known for accuracy, the organization has collected and published presidential election data since 1848. Major news outlets rely on the polling data and results provided by the Associated Press before declaring a winner in major political races, particularly the presidential election. In declaring the winners, the AP has historically relied on a robust network of local reporters with first-hand knowledge of assigned territories who also have long-standing relationships with county clerks as well as other local officials. Moreover, the AP monitors and gathers data from county websites and electronic feeds provided by states. The research team further verifies the results by considering demographics, number of absentee ballots, and other political issues that may have an effect on the final results. In 2018, the AP introduced a new system called AP VoteCast, which was developed together with NORC at the University of Chicago in order to further improve the reliability of its data and overcome biases of its legacy exit poll.


Sports polls

The AP conducts polls for numerous college sports in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. The AP college football rankings were created in 1936, and began including the top 25 teams in 1989. Since 1969, the final poll of each season has been released after all bowl games have been played. The AP released its all-time Top 25 in 2016. , 22 different programs had finished in the number one spot of the poll since its inception. In the pre-bowl game determination era, the AP poll was often used as the distinction for a national champion in football. The AP college basketball poll has been used as a guide for which teams deserve national attention. The AP first began its poll of college basketball teams in 1949, and has since conducted over 1,100 polls. The college basketball poll started with 20 teams and was reduced to 10 during the 1960–61 college basketball season. It returned to 20 teams in 1968–69 and expanded to 25 beginning in 1989–90. The final poll for each season is released prior to the conclusion of the NCAA tournament, so all data includes regular season games only. In 2017, The AP released a list of the Top 100 teams of all time. The poll counted poll appearances (one point) and No. 1 rankings (two points) to rank each team.


Sports awards


Baseball

The AP began its
Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
Manager of the Year Award in 1959, for a manager in each league.AP Manager of the Year Award
. Baseball-Almanac.com. Retrieved 2009-09-29. Although the award began in 1959, AP gave a "manager of the year" award in 1950 to Eddie Sawyer of the Philadelphia Phillies.
From 1984 to 2000, the award was given to one manager in all of MLB. The winners were chosen by a national panel of AP baseball writers and radio men. The award was discontinued in 2001.


Basketball

Every year, the AP releases the names of the winners of its AP College Basketball Player of the Year and AP College Basketball Coach of the Year awards. It also honors a group of All-American players.


Football

* AP NFL Most Valuable Player * AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year * AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year * AP NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year * AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year * AP NFL Coach of the Year * AP NFL Comeback Player of the Year * AP College Football Player of the Year


Associated Press Television News

In 1994, London-based Associated Press Television (APTV) was founded to provide agency news material to television broadcasters. In 1998, the AP purchased Worldwide Television News (WTN) from the ABC News division of The Walt Disney Company, Nine Network Australia and ITN London. The AP publishes 70,000 videos and 6,000 hours of live video per year, . The agency also provides seven simultaneous live video channels, AP Direct for broadcasters, and six live channels on AP Live Choice for broadcasters and digital publishers. The AP was the first news agency to launch a live video news service in 2003.


AP Stylebook


Litigation and controversies


AP collaboration with Nazi Germany

The AP collaborated with
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
and gave to it access to its photographic archives for its antisemitic Nazi propaganda. AP also cooperated with the Nazi regime through censorship. In 2017, the German historian Norman Domeier of the
University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...
brought to wider attention the deal between the AP and the Nazi government related to the interchange of press photos during the period in which the United States was at war with Nazi Germany. This relationship involved the Bureau Laux, run by the
Waffen-SS The (; ) was the military branch, combat branch of the Nazi Party's paramilitary ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscr ...
photographer Helmut Laux. The mechanism for this interchange involved a courier flying to
Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...
and back each day transporting photos from and for Nazi Germany's wartime enemy, the United States, via diplomatic pouch. The transactions were initially conducted at the AP bureau under Luiz Lupi in Lisbon, and from 1944, when the exchange via Lisbon took too long, also at the AP bureau in
Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
under Eddie Shanke. Here, as a cover, the Swedish agency, , was involved as an intermediary. An estimated 40,000 photos were exchanged between the enemies in this way. The AP was kicked out of Nazi Germany when the United States entered World War II in December 1941.


Israeli–Palestinian conflict

In his book ''Broken Spring: An American-Israeli Reporter's Close-up View of How Egyptians Lost Their Struggle for Freedom'', former AP correspondent Mark Lavie claimed that the editorial line of the Cairo bureau was that the conflict was Israel's fault and the Arabs and Palestinians were blameless. Israeli journalist Matti Friedman accused the AP of killing a story he wrote about the "war of words", "between Israel and its critics in human rights organizations", in the aftermath of the Israel/Gaza conflict of 2008–09.


Tuvia Grossman photograph

On September 29, 2000, the first day of the Second Intifada, the AP published a photograph of a badly bloodied young man behind whom a police officer could be seen with a baton raised in a menacing fashion; a gas station with Hebrew lettering could also be seen in the background. The AP labelled it with the caption "An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount", and the picture and caption were subsequently published in several major American newspapers, including the ''New York Times''. In reality, the injured man in the photograph was a Jewish yeshiva student from Chicago named Tuvia Grossman, and the police officer, a Druze named Gidon Tzefadi, was protecting Grossman from a Palestinian mob who had clubbed, stoned, and stabbed Grossman. There are also no gas stations with Hebrew lettering on the Temple Mount. The episode is often cited by those who accuse the media of having an anti-Israel bias, and was the impetus for the founding of HonestReporting. After a letter from Grossman's father noted the error, the AP, the New York Times, and other papers published corrections; despite these corrections, the photograph continues to be used by critics of Israel as a symbol of Israeli aggression and violence.


Israeli airstrike on the AP office building

During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the Israeli army destroyed the al-Jalaa Highrise, a building housing the AP's Gaza offices and Al Jazeera offices. Israel stated that the building housed
Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...
military intelligence and had given advanced warning of the strike, and no civilians were harmed. AP CEO Gary Pruitt released a statement on May 16, stating that he "had no indication Hamas was in the building" and called on the Israeli government to provide the evidence. He said that "the world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today." On May 17, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said he had not seen any evidence that Hamas operated from the building housing the AP and Al Jazeera, but it is the job of others to handle intelligence matters. Israel reportedly shared intelligence with American officials and U.S. president Joe Biden showing Hamas offices inside the building. Reporters Without Borders asked the
International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental organization and International court, international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute ...
to investigate the bombing as a possible war crime. On June 8, Israeli Ambassador to the US Gilad Erdan met with AP CEO Gary Pruitt and vice president for foreign news, Ian Phillips, to discuss the operation. In coordination with the IDF, Erdan said the site was used by Hamas intelligence officials to develop and carry out electronic warfare operations, and that IDF did not suspect the AP was aware of the alleged covert Hamas presence. After the meeting the AP stated "We have yet to receive evidence to support these claims". Erdan later tweeted "Israel is willing to assist AP in rebuilding its offices and operations in Gaza."


Firing of Emily Wilder

In May 2021, the AP said it would launch a review of its social media policies after questions were raised about the firing of a journalist who expressed pro-Palestinian views on social media. The announcement came after some AP journalists signed a letter expressing concern over the termination of former news associate Emily Wilder, whom the AP said committed multiple violations of the company's social media policy. The AP has said that Wilder's previous activism played no role in her termination.


Shani Louk photograph

During the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Hamas terrorists murdered German-Israeli Shani Louk. Hours later that day, a video emerged showing Louk's body, partially clothed, with a significant head injury and blood-matted hair, being paraded in the streets of
Gaza City Gaza City, also called Gaza, is a city in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, and the capital of the Gaza Governorate. Located on the Mediterranean coast, southwest of Jerusalem, it was home to Port of Gaza, Palestine's only port. With a population of ...
by Hamas militants in the back of a pickup truck; they were exclaiming " Allahu Akbar" and were joined in the cheers by the people in the crowd surrounding the vehicle, some of whom spat on the body. Before the scene from the viral video, as the pickup truck was returning to the Gaza Strip, it was photographed by an Associated Press (AP) freelance photojournalist. The image, showing the vehicle carrying Louk's body and the attackers, was featured as the first in a series of 20 photographs from the war taken by the AP's team of photographers which won the "Team Picture Story of the Year" prize at the 2024 Pictures of the Year International competition. On 28 February 2024, the families of Shani Louk and four other Nova music festival massacre victims filed a civil lawsuit in the Jerusalem District Court against the AP and Reuters, seeking NIS 25 million ($6.5 million) in damages. According to the lawsuit, certain photographers whose photos of 7 October events these news agencies published were embedded with Hamas and were complicit with the crimes committed, rendering the agencies vicariously liable for the actions of the perpetrators. The agencies denied the accusation. A similar lawsuit against the AP was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, citing alleged violations of
anti-terrorism legislation Anti-terrorism legislation are laws aimed at fighting terrorism. They usually, if not always, follow specific bombings or assassinations. Anti-terrorism legislation usually includes specific amendments allowing the state to bypass its own l ...
; it was rejected in December 2024.


Removal of Israel-Palestine Livestream

In May 2024, Israeli officials seized equipment broadcasting a live stream of Northern Gaza from the town of Sderot as part of a ban on Al Jazeera Media in Israel which had received footage from the broadcast. The move was condemned by multiple journalism organizations, Israeli opposition politicians, and US government officials. In a press briefing, the spokesperson for the
National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a n ...
commented on the seizure, saying "The White House and the State Department immediately engaged with the government of Israel at high levels to express our serious concern and ask them to reverse this action." Later that day, Israeli Communication Minister Shlomo Karhi announced via Twitter that the equipment would be returned to the AP and the Israeli Government would review the positioning of the AP broadcast to determine if it posed a security risk.


Kidnapping of Tina Susman

In 1994, Tina Susman was on her fourth trip to
Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...
, reporting for the AP. She was reporting on U.S. peacekeeping troops leaving the country. Somali rebels outnumbered her bodyguards in
Mogadishu Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia and has ...
, dragged her from her car in broad daylight, and held her for 20 days. She told '' The Quill'' that she believes being a woman was an advantage in her experience there. The AP had requested news organizations including ''The New York Times'', the ''
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
,'' and ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' to suppress the story to discourage the emboldening of the kidnappers.


Christopher Newton

In September 2002, Washington, D.C. bureau reporter Christopher Newton, an AP reporter since 1994, was fired after he was accused of fabricating sources since 2000, including at least 40 people and organizations. Prior to his firing, Newton had been focused on writing about federal law-enforcement while based at the Justice Department. 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".


FBI impersonation case

In 2007, an
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
agent working in Seattle impersonated an AP journalist and infected the computer of a 15-year-old suspect with a malicious surveillance software. The incident sparked a strongly worded statement from the AP demanding the bureau never impersonate a member of the news media again. In September 2016 the incident resulted in a report by the Justice Department, which the AP said "effectively condone the FBI's impersonation". In December 2017, following a US court appearance, a judge ruled in favor of the AP in a lawsuit against the FBI for fraudulently impersonating a member of the news media in conjunction with the 2007 case.


Fair-use controversy

In June 2008, the AP sent numerous DMCA take-down demands and threatened legal action against several
blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...
s. The AP contended that the internet blogs were violating the AP's
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...
by linking to AP material and using headlines and short summaries in those links. Many bloggers and experts noted that the use of the AP news fell squarely under commonly accepted internet practices and within fair-use standards. Others noted and demonstrated that the AP routinely takes similar excerpts from other sources, often without attribution or licenses. The AP responded that it was defining standards regarding citations of AP news.


Shepard Fairey

In March 2009, the AP counter-sued artist Shepard Fairey over his famous image of Barack Obama, saying the uncredited, uncompensated use of an AP photo violated copyright laws and signaled a threat to journalism. Fairey had sued the AP the previous month over his artwork, titled "Obama Hope" and "Obama Progress", arguing that he did not violate copyright law because he dramatically changed the image. The artwork, based on an April 2006 picture taken for the AP by Mannie Garcia, was a popular image during the 2008 presidential election and now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. According to the AP lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan, Fairey knowingly "misappropriated The AP's rights in that image". The suit asked the court to award the AP profits made off the image and damages. Fairey said he looked forward to "upholding the free expression rights at stake here" and disproving the AP's accusations. In January 2011 this suit was settled with neither side declaring their position to be wrong but agreeing to share reproduction rights and profits from Fairey's work.


All Headline News

In January 2008, the AP sued competitor All Headline News (AHN) claiming that AHN allegedly infringed on its copyrights and a contentious "quasi-property" right to facts. The AP complaint asserted that AHN reporters had copied facts from AP news reports without permission and without paying a syndication fee. After AHN moved to dismiss all but the copyright claims set forth by the AP, a majority of the lawsuit was dismissed. The case has been dismissed and both parties settled.


Hoax tweet and flash crash

On April 23, 2013, hackers posted a tweet to AP's Twitter account about fictional attacks on the White House, falsely claiming that President Obama had been injured. The hoax caused a flash crash on the American stock markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly falling by 143 points.


Justice Department subpoena of phone records

On May 13, 2013, the AP announced that telephone records for 20 of their reporters during a two-month period in 2012 had been subpoenaed by the U.S. Justice Department and described these acts as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news-gathering operations. The AP reported that the Justice Department would not say why it sought the records, but sources stated that the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia's office was conducting a criminal investigation into a May 7, 2012 AP story about a CIA operation that prevented a terrorist plot to detonate an explosive device on a commercial flight. The DOJ did not direct subpoenas to the AP, instead going to their phone providers, including Verizon Wireless. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder testified under oath in front of the House Judiciary Committee that he recused himself from the leak investigations to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. Holder said his Deputy Attorney General, James M. Cole, was in charge of the AP investigation and would have ordered the subpoenas.


Migrant Boat NFT

On January 10, 2022, AP announced it would start selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of their photographs in partnership with a company named Xooa, with the proceeds being used to fund their operations. One of the NFTs they promoted on Twitter on 24 February was an aerial shot depicting an overcrowded migrant boat in the
Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...
. The tweet received negative backlash from users and other journalists, with AP being accused of profiting off of human suffering and the picture choice being "dystopian" and "in extremely poor taste". The tweet was subsequently deleted and the NFT, which was to be sold the next day, was pulled from market. Global director of media relations Lauren Easton apologized, saying "This was a poor choice of imagery for an NFT. It has not and will not be put up for auction ..AP's NFT marketplace is a very early pilot program, and we are immediately reviewing our efforts". No further NFTs were announced or sold.


Awards received

The AP has earned 59 Pulitzer Prizes, including 36 for photography, since the award was established in 1917. In May 2020, Dar Yasin, Mukhtar Khan, and Channi Anand of the AP were honored with the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. The choice caused controversy, because it was taken by some as questioning "India's legitimacy over Kashmir" as it had used the word "independence" in regard to revocation of Article 370. The AP won an Oscar in 2024 for 20 Days in Mariupol, a first-person account of the early days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.


See also

* Agence France-Presse, French news agency * '' AP Stylebook'' * '' Associated Press v. Meltwater'' * Australian Associated Press, Australian news agency *
The Canadian Press The Canadian Press (CP; , ) is a Canadian national news agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1917 as a vehicle for Canadian newspapers to exchange news and information, The Canadian Press has been a privately-held company, pr ...
, Canadian news agency * EFE, Spanish news agency * George Emil Bria * International Press Telecommunications Council * Jewish Telegraphic Agency, described as the "Associated Press of Jewish media" * List of news agencies * List of online image archives * NewsML * News Industry Text Format * Reuters * TweenTribune, children-focused news


References


Citations


Sources

* * * * * *


Further reading

* Blanchard, Margaret A. "The Associated Press antitrust suit: A philosophical clash over ownership of first amendment rights." ''Business History Review'' 61.1 (1987): 43–85. * Blondheim, Menahem. ''News over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844–1897'' (Harvard U. Press, 1994). * Blondheim, Menahem. "The click: Telegraphic technology, journalism, and the transformations of the New York Associated Press." ''American Journalism'' 17.4 (2000): 27–52. * Coopersmith, Jonathan. "From lemons to lemonade: The development of AP Wirephoto." ''American Journalism'' 17.4 (2000): 55–72. * Dell'Orto, Giovanna. ''AP foreign correspondents in action: World War II to the present'' (Cambridge University Press, 2016
online
* Halberstam, David. ''Breaking news: how the Associated Press has covered war, peace, and everything else'' (Princeton Architectural Press, 2007
online
* Kirat, Mohamed, and David Weaver. "Foreign news coverage in three wire services: A study of AP, UPI, and the nonaligned news agencies pool." ''Gazette'' (Leiden, Netherlands) 35.1 (1985): 31–47. * Rantanen, Terhi. "Foreign dependence and domestic monopoly: The European news cartel and US associated presses, 1861–1932." ''Media History'' 12.1 (2006): 19–35. * Renaud, Jean-Luc. "US government assistance to AP's world-wide expansion." ''Journalism Quarterly'' 62.1 (1985): 10–36. * Seo, Soomin. "Blue-Collar witnesses to power: The culture of photographers at the Associated Press." ''Journalism Studies'' 20.15 (2019): 2200–2217
online
* Smethers, J. Steven. "Pounding Brass for the Associated Press: Delivering News by Telegraph in a Pre-Teletype Era." ''American Journalism'' 19.2 (2002): 13–30. * Watts, Liz. "AP's first female reporters." ''Journalism History'' 39.1 (2013): 15–28
online


External links

*
Corporate website
*
The Associated Press Statement of News Values and Principles
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