Talk:Associated Press/Archive 1

AP competitors
AP is competing in an increasingly saturated market.

Agence France Press?

Xinhua?

New York Times (+ International Herald Tribune)?


 * Except for Reuters, AP has no real English-language competition; the other services you name dominate in other languages. I know of no American papers that subscribe solely to the NYTimes and/or Washington Post News services without also subscribing to AP. AP is cheaper and far broader as far as breaking news goes.

History of AP, Brass Check
To a Minister of Truth: I suggest Brass Check is a good book for the state of the AP at the turn of the century - there's more to it than Teletypes, after all. And if AP again has a monopoly on wire-servicing (in the animal-husbandry sense) the US public [just how is the UPI comment to be interpreted?], how that has played out in the past ought to be of interest. Especially since the AP is the sole collator of "election" "results" tomorrow. And if you protest Brass Check is not about the AP, I'll point out the older Library of Congress catalogue entries list "Associated Press" as one of its categories. Kwantus 00:52, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC) (PS: count y'self lucky I merely mentioned the book, and didn't start rewriting the article.)


 * There are many, many books about the history of U.S. journalism that contain information about AP which might be of interest to this article, but "Brass Check" isn't one of them. It is wildly out of date (especially if you think it has relevance to the current situation; when it was written, AP was a struggling underdog). But of course you are welcome to start rewriting the article - that's the way Wikipedia works! - DavidWBrooks 01:39, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * So put some of THOSE books in, fer cryin out loud. (wait. what? How can what is for years an indebted monopoly spreading completely inverted or entirely fabricated news with impunity qualify as "struggling underdog"?) Incidentally, check history (unless WP has discarded it for lack of space) -- I am not welcome, even when what I write is well-supported. As a for instance: Nurse Nayirah. (I do not contest that this is because of a certain immoderateness in my writing: after the outrage I've watched go on just the past four years - thanks in part to a US press that, in what counts, lies and covers up as baldly as Sinclair described 85 years ago - I cannot be moderate. If there were moderates taking my place I'd be happy; but so many waste themselves on absolute bread-and-circus garbage like American Idle.) I limit login now to when I express something that's only my opinion. Kwantus 23:13, 2004 Nov 2 (UTC)


 * Oh, I forgot to mention: someone thinks Brass Check interesting enough that the U of Illinois Press reprinted it about two years ago (ISBN 0252071107) Kwantus 02:51, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)

AP's television service is now known as APTN

Note: The picture on the main entry page shows the AP's old headquarters in Rockefeller Center. The company has since moved to Manhattan's West Side.

Retracted Stories
If we're going to list every retracted story that AP, or any other wire service, has run over the years, we're going to have to double the size of wikipedia! So I removed the long, rambling account of one such case, since it lacked context. Discussion about the merits, or lack thereof, of the wire service are certainly valuable additions to the article, but not in the form of a rant. - DavidWBrooks 16:57, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Explanation of AP fees
This was originally posted on the Reference Desk with the title "Is news public domain?"

It seems from the public domain article that facts are in the public domain, but reporting of them may not be. A news agency might do a lot of work to collect some news and expect just compensation. So how is it that news stories can be "picked up" by competing agencies, e.g., the Associated Press picking up a story in a local newspaper? Isn't that local news story under copyright? Is there a fee involved or some sort of professional agreement? Thanks. Mjklin 15:10, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)
 * As you can see from the article on the AP, it's owned by its contributing newspapers. A local newspaper allows its stories to be used by the AP because it has the opportunity to use AP wire stories itself.  So, the answer is that the news story is certainly under copyright, and the only fees/professional arrangements involved are the money and agreements necessary to maintain the AP. :-) Jwrosenzweig 15:16, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ok, but the AP seems to be a special arrangement. Does "picking up" happen in any other situation, say, between Newsweek and Good Housekeeping? What about if Newsweek picked up a story from a British paper?


 * In cases other than AP - and in some cases involving AP - there is simply a price schedule for using articles established in advance. You can publish AP articles on your own personal website if you pay the fees.  Or, a bunch of newspapers will be owned by the same company which will share articles among its different papers.  American papers in particular are often part of large chains, where two newspapers in cities on the opposite sides of the country may have identical news stories on the same day for all or nearly all their non-local news.


 * In short, it all stays under copyright but the rights are presold or prelicensed because news breaks too quickly to ask for explicit permission. Selling news stories is a source of income for some newspapers.


 * There is no special reason why newsmagazines can't do this too, but magazines don't usually buy stories from wire services (sometimes, but not usually). The fees are proportionate to mean circulation, so Newsweek would have to pay a lot if it used wire articles, and people wouldn't read it much for last week's AP wire feeds.  So this sort of thing doesn't much happen.  Now, magazines do sometimes exchange stories, but then it's usually negociated specifically for that article and money changes hands.  There are sometimes standard fee schedules for reprinting and translating stories, but that means publication in a different market or at a later date.   Diderot 16:01, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Just yesterday, The Cincinnati Enquirer carried an AP story from Akron, Ohio about a big series on home-schooling the Akron Beacon Journal is doing this week. The AP routinely moves stories that tell everyone else what is being reported on.  One reason is to let editors know there's something they might want to get reprint rights on.  Now as for a story being picked up by the AP, one of the conditions of membership, is that the AP is entitled to exclusive rights to distribute breaking local news.  So if a plane crashes in Seattle, the AP could pick up everything the Post-Intelligencer and the Times wrote and every AP subscriber would be free to use it.  This does not apply to where a paper's bureaus elsewhere break a story, investigative reports, columns, reviews, and the like.  (Thought syndication deals often exist for this material, just not through the AP.) Facts are in the public domain.  And for an older Associated Press story you needn't worry so much about infringement because the story has gone stale.  However, the AP and others have won court cases--I don't have the citations at hand--where radio and television stations who weren't subscribers simply rephrased AP stories and put them on the air; these precedents are from the 1920s and 1930s.  The courts have reasoned that if everyone were allowed to piggyback on the AP's labor then nobody would go into the business of newsgathering and there would be no news since everyone decided to be a freerider rather than a subscriber.  The Toledo Blade newspaper got a settlement from a tv station a couple years ago that was basically reading the morning paper on the air.  Again, I don't have the citations, but a long time ago--in the 19th century, I believe--the courts ruled you couldn't copyright information such as stock quotes, commodities prices, prices quoted on merchandise, etc., notwithstanding the disclaimers you see today on Bloomberg and CNBC.  As for the workings of the AP, it is a non-profit memership co-operative.  Every general interest daily newspaper in America (there are around 1,500) is a member plus some college and weekly papers.  Their fees are determined on circulation, so USA Today (circulation 2 million) pays a lot more than The Battle Creek Enquirer (circulation 9,000). (This is how rates for features such as comics and columns are determined, a small paper might only pay a couple dollars a week for them.) Broadcasters, internet sites, and others can subscribe to the AP, but the service is run primarily for the benefit of the newspapers.  Back in the 1920's the AP resisted letting radio subscribe until it realized the cash cow it could be and now the income from broadcasters and the rest is icing on the cake.  PedanticallySpeaking 17:08, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Accusations of Bias
I don't see a big reason to delete this section. Someone learning about the AP may be interested in others' perceived bias. A google search for '"associated press" bias' reveals 210,000 websites. That is not insignificant, albeit not all will directly address them being biased. The section in question (rewritten a bit by me since last inclusion):

The AP has critics who believe its news judgement is biased. Some claim that frequent coverage of hostility in Iraq, including hostage beheadings and perceived terrorism, panders to a western audience and the United States's point of view while ignoring civilian casualties caused by the so-called Coalition of the Willing. It is also claimed that the AP may often address the opinions of the Pentagon, White House, and CIA analysts more often than those of foreign governments. --Alterego 21:29, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

keep bias section
I perceive AP to be biased, which means that AP is not as neutral as it's made out to be. I'm sure others also think so. A bias section is thus necessary. Modify or expand the section about alleged bias, but don't delete it.


 * I trimmed the bias section. Complaining because a US-based organization, whose clients and components are largely American, interviews Americans more than non-Americans seems a bit silly. You might as well say that Agence France Press is "biased" toward francophones. - DavidWBrooks 14:40, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A rudimentary understanding of bias is necessary.

It is not only a decision of which stories to cover. It is almost irrelevant which stories are covered if there is no inherent bias. If the stories themself are unbiased while the range of stories is limited to subject matter that is biased with respect to the inclusion of some subjects and the exclusion of others, the lack of bias within the stories will to a large extent mitigate that bias. The potential for abuse is there but likely a public outcry will occur if excluded issues are not covered. Exceptions continue such as the lack of reporting even to this day regarding ongoing riots in France. Also the issue of conditioning audience expectations is relevant to story selection.

However none of that deals with the inherent bias plainly visible in stories run by AP on a daily basis wherein the NEWS component has been replaced with OPINION ABOUT THE NEWS. It is more subtle to a degree than categorizing which stories get coverage and which do not get any attention.

Putting forward opinion AS THE NEWS is essentially biased and this sort of commentary heretofore (over 10 - 20 years ago) were always LABELED as NEW ANALYSIS or other euphemisms for opinion. Shortly, I will present a sample of news bias by AP from a small sample of two or three days of articles. Further one can easily demonstrate bias and a conditioning or developmental type of bias by usng certain words to replace the actual identity or subject of a article. (i.e. "youths" rather than "muslim rioters")

AP bias in the presentation of its "news articles" is certainly a serious issue and democracy, and freedom-threatening issue. As stated above, of English-language, USA-centric news sources, there is little competition for AP in the press. PhilipGBarnett11/21/05:10:53HST


 * Make sure that by "bias" you don't mean "failing to accent the part of the story that I think is most important" - i.e., "not slanted in the way I favor." Most of the time, that's what people mean by the term. - DavidWBrooks 12:53, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The phrase above "Make sure," is arrogant. It interestingly assumes some sort of authority where none exists. It is interesting to note the post is from a newspaper reporter.

This supposed admonition is false on its definition of bias, its support of inherent bias is telling and it is not logical.

How is that?

Is it correct to say that one may not observe bias if one favors a particular opinion in a news report which has not been labeled as opinion?

Further, to state that by one's experience, people report they have observed bias in AP reporting, and then those reports are automatically assumed as unfounded as a result simply because of their disagreement with the opinion or viewpoint in the AP news, is incomplete unless you go further to show the details of the instance since the observers very well may have found an example of bias in the AP report they disagreed with.

Why?

It is because if the somehow biased observer reports an opinion from an AP news report as being objectionable to them, then they are in fact reporting inclusion of opinion in the news reports, which, on its face, would in fact be a correct observation of bias.

So when doing real analysis of a subject, in this case AP news content, one cannot simply make pronouncements about what bias "usually is" in their opinion and stand ready to delete any objection to an opinion that has been reported as the news, in the news, as unwarranted and unfounded when the observer of the AP news bias also happened to disagree with the unlabeled opinion without looking to see whether in fact there was an AP author's opinion originally expressed as part of that news.

An ideally objective viewpoint would exclude opinion. It contains facts. It may contain the opinion of others who are materially part of the story and when it does, to maintain an unbiased content, ideally it should include the opposing or alternative viewpoint(s) if there is any controversy.

If an AP author has an opinion about the topic he is writing about and segregated that opinion as an analysis or a introduction such as 'In my view...' there is no problem distinguishing the opinion of the AP author from the news that reporter is reporting.

It is just too simplistic and moronic to suggest that opinionated observers are disqualified from recognizing opinions of AP authors.

What is missing here is the very basic premise that bias stems from reporting opinion as news.

It is not of concern to an analysis of this phenomena, (the discovery of opinion within a news report), what the particular opinion is that is contained in the otherwise unbiased report of news, nor that of the observer.

First of all it is not the direction of bias that should matter. The idea that one needs to make sure one is not opinionated before observing bias is illogical when it is shown through discussion and example that the opinion was in fact given as AP news in a specific case.

The whole point here is "Is there bias in the reporting of AP news and its authors?"

Not the direction of the bias. Now certainly it is ever the more interesting to find if the opinion of a large and diverse group of AP authors are united in an opinion on a topic or an event that is in the news and they go about conspiring to fix the news with opinion-laced components that are all biased in the same direction. However, that is a detail and distinction within the topic overall, albeit one that ought to be determined with vigor.

Opinion should be labeled as such and not disguised as news.

If I am asked that I take one side in the opinion as the author of an observation of bias or inclusion of opinion in the AP news reports, as news, that ought to be irrelevant to my being able to prove whether or not there is opinion in that news article.

I disagree with the supposition that most observed bias in the media is simply a matter of disagreeing with a point of view put forward by the AP. It is the very fact that a slant of a particular point of view is being included as part of an article from a supposedly neutral reporting authority that demonstrate the bias. This authority is granted or expected based on the author's direct observation as assumed by the reader and the accurate recording of the facts and quotations, not the author's personal opinion, unless that opinion is conspicuously labeled as such.

The supposition that only an unbiased observer can find bias in a news report when the bias observed simply does not "accent to their opinion" or does not agree with their slant on the subject lacks logic as well. It presupposes that if I observe bias in a news report and I happen to disagree with the opinion favored in the biased report, that I am somehow disqualified from pointing out that the bias actually existed in the report to be begin with.

The idea presupposes that if I agree with the bias and I not so disqualified. This is at best a sloppy contention. At worst it is a direct interference with the goal of objective observation.

This sort of neo-bureaucratic edit does nothing to further advance discussion on the topic of whether the news published by the AP and its reporters does include opinion and whether that opinion possibly contains a purposeful slant one way or the other. Certainly a thoughtful topic contributor should be willing to put forward more effort than this to be taken seriously.

Is disclosure of whether an AP author favors or or opposes a particular position or deliberately places one side of the story more or less prominently relevant to discussion of bias in AP news?

Yes it is.

The whole point here is opinion is not news.

That AP author's opinion is carried through content and emphasis and word choice.

Both a biased observer and an ideally objective observer must be able to demonstrate that bias exists in the AP reports in question and or uncover the fact that the AP author is a representative of a particular viewpoint whether by the author's undisclosed membership in a group with an inherently specific viewpoint or other undisclosed predisposition toward the topic or event. PhilipGBarentt11/30/05 11:29 PM HST; PhilipGBarnett12/03/05 8:15 PM HST


 * Please don't erase comments, move comments or change existing parts of Talk pages when you add material or respond to comments - that makes it impossible for other people, who may come along later, to understand and contribute to the debate. - DavidWBrooks 14:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey bub, don't lecture me. Add something to the debate or get lost. Being a putz is not a debate. You have zero to say and you say it way too often. You think you can singlehandling dictate etiquette while unilaterally deciding to "trim" what ever you think is appropriate.


 * [ from above: "I trimmed the bias section. ...DavidWBrooks 14:40, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC) end of paste from above]

Add something to the topic Brooks or go to one one of those whiney teenager-style chat rooms. That's about your level of input. And do not lecture me again or give me another directive. You state your case in substance. PhilBarnett12/4/0510:30PM HST.

Typical - zero response, zero to contribute on topic, just whiney babble about control issues. PhilBarnett12/06/056:30PM HST


 * Please come back when you have understood No personal attacks. 121a0012 06:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's a sample item of bias via headline word choice, The blogger notes it took great mismanagement of the original wording, i.e. purposeful and deliberate effort, to create this misleading headline:


 * via http://corner.nationalreview.com/
 * "##" Sunday, December 11, 2005


 * IN CASE ANYONE IS STILL UNCLEAR ON MEDIA BIAS [Warren Bell]
 * This is the headline from a Wired News story that was pushed onto my Google mail page: "Bush 'Flat Wrong' On Kyoto"


 * Hmm. Well, it's a hard news story reporting that President Bush has been conclusively proven wrong in his policy on the environment and global warming, then, isn't it? Actually, naive reader, it's not. Here's the first sentence: "Former President Clinton told a global audience of diplomats, environmentalists and others Friday that the Bush administration is "flat wrong" in claiming that reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to fight global warming would damage the U.S. economy."


 * Now, how hard would it have been to make that headline: "Clinton: Bush is 'Wrong' on Kyoto"? I mean, it actually took some amount of effort to make the headline that misleading. Posted at 08:24 PM ##

{end of paste from Corner blog) PhilBarnett12/12/05 12:38AM HST


 * Um, I see no "bias via headline word choice". The headline is quite clear as it stands.  The blogger appears not to understand the meaning of quotation marks as used in newspaper headlines.  121a0012 06:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's another example. Please note the author of the blog post lets the WP piece stand on its own. The main supposition indicated in the WP article is Clinton as a centrist. However very recent votes indicate muc the opposite on the same criteria urged by the WP reporter.

from http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2005/12/11-week/index.php#a000742


 * Agenda Journalism on the Front Pagge of the Washington Post
 * by Hugh Hewitt
 * December 12, 2005 05:58 AM PST


 * The Washington Post goes full Orwell today with its love letter to Hillary Clinton that begins:


 * At a time when politicians in both parties have eagerly sought public forums to debate the war in Iraq, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has kept in the shadows.


 * Clinton has stayed steadfastly on a centrist path, criticizing President Bush but refusing to embrace the early troop withdrawal options that are gaining rapid favor in her party. This careful balance is drawing increasing scorn from liberal activists, frustrated that one of the party's leading lights has shown little appetite to challenge Bush's policy more directly and embrace a plan to set a timetable for bringing U.S. forces home.


 * Hillary Clinton is not a "centrist" on the war. As recently as November 15, she voted with Senator Levin to demand a timetable for withdrawal, an idea that is rejected by every serious proponent of victory in Iraq as the worst sort of defeatism.


 * Clinton intends just this sort of positioning for her 2008 presidential run, so it will be necessary to compile a detailed record of her Defeatocrat sentiments. Send me links to your posts on her record on the war, and I'll list them here. I welcome specific suggestions on what facts and quotes the Washington Post overlooked in its piece today. [end of paste from http://hughhewitt.com]

PhilBarnett12/13/0510:12PM HST


 * The Washington Post is not the same thing as the Associated Press. 121a0012 06:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Here's an in depth analysis from Noel Sheppard via http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5067

This is a great example of "how to" analyze the subject of bias in a real case. If some disagrees that there is any editorial bias in the sunject NYT report, he would best to state that case in at least as great a detail as Mr. Sheppard. Not likely!

[paste begins here] All the news the New York Times won't print December 12th, 2005

“Everything is always Bush’s fault.” That slogan would be far more appropriate for the front page box of the New York Times than the existing slogan, “All the news that’s fit to print.” When a pet cause like the Kyoto Treaty, addressing a pet scare like alleged man-made climate change is involved, inconvenient facts have a tendency to get lost, however fit for print they may be.

A front page New York Times story on Saturday concerning the global warming talks in Montreal placed all the blame for America’s refusal to move forward with the highly controversial Kyoto Protocol on the Bush administration. In doing so, the Times neglected to inform its readers about the history of this accord, or that the Senate in 1997 expressed its unanimous opposition to it. In addition, the Times completely ignored any of the obvious economic consequences to America if it entered into a global warming treaty that did not include China.

Yet, that didn’t deter the Times from identifying a culprit:


 * “In a sign of its growing isolation on climate issues, the Bush administration had come under sharp criticism for walking out of informal discussions on finding new ways to reduce emissions under the United Nations’ 1992 treaty on climate change.”


 * “Environmentalists here called [the chief American negotiator’s] actions the capstone of two weeks of American efforts to prevent any fresh initiatives from being discussed. ‘This shows just how willing the U.S. administration is to walk away from a healthy planet and its responsibilities to its own people,’ said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate change project at the World Wildlife Fund.”

The Times conveniently neglected to address the history of this treaty. In particular, that the Senate voted in July 1997 95-0 expressing its unanimous, bipartisan opposition to then president Bill Clinton signing the Protocol. In fact, even Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) voted against its signing, stating at the time of his vote:


 * “It’s just common sense that if you are really going to do something to effect global climate change and you are going to do it in a fair-minded way, we need to have an agreement that does not leave enormous components of the world’s contributors and future contributors of this problem out of the solution.”

The Times also failed to share any contrary viewpoints concerning the impact of the Protocol being fully implemented. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and the author of “Hot Talk Cold Science: Global Warming’s Unfinished Debate,” had this to say in an October 2004 USA Today op-ed:


 * “Neither Bush nor the Senate has pointed out, however, that Kyoto is not only costly and unfair to the U.S., but it is also ineffective in averting a feared global warming. Scientists all agree that at best it would reduce the calculated temperature rise in 2050 by an insignificant one-tenth of a degree.


 * “Russia has been more outspoken. The Russian Academy of Sciences, in a May 2004 report, questioned the reality of substantial future warming, concluding that Kyoto lacks any scientific base.”

The Times also failed to inform the reader of the economic consequences of America moving forward with this Protocol without the inclusion of all the major economic powers, specifically China. This is what Singer had to say on the subject:


 * “A treaty obligating developed nations but not China, India, Brazil and Mexico would produce huge U.S. job losses as industries moved overseas.”

Even former Clinton administration economists now question the financial wisdom of this accord. Jonathan Weisman, while still writing for the USA Today, wrote about this very issue in June 2001:


 * “Economists from the Clinton White House now concede that complying with Kyoto’s mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases would be difficult — and more expensive to American consumers than they thought when they were in charge.”

Weisman continued:


 * o “Clinton administration economists say that, in retrospect, their low cost estimates were unrealistic. They assumed that:


 * o China and India would accept binding emission limits and would fully participate in the emissions-trading system, even though they never signed the treaty.


 * o European opposition to emissions trading could be overcome.


 * o Most industries and consumers would quickly adopt new, energy-efficient technologies, such as advanced air conditioning systems and gas-electric ‘hybrid’ cars, without financial incentives.”

Weisman then raised a fabulous point that has largely been lost in this debate:


 * “Since 1997, however, it has become clear that consumers love their gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles and aren’t embracing energy-efficient technologies; China has no intention of participating in the treaty; and Europe still wants to limit emissions trading as a partial solution to global warming.”

To put this into proper perspective, until this year, when gas prices exploded through $2 per gallon, Americans have shown little appetite for energy conservation. As such, if the citizenry appears in opposition to behaviors that would reduce carbon emissions, why should American businesses be compelled to?

In addition, with the growing behemoth that is the Chinese economy – with its exponentially increasing appetite for all commodities including steel, concrete, soy beans, chicken, wood, and, yes, energy – any treaty that does not involve China would further expand its competitive edge over the rest of the world, including the United States. Clinton administration economists appear to agree:


 * “Leaving China out of a trading scheme would double the Clinton cost estimate, says Joseph Aldy, who helped develop the estimates for Clinton. ‘We always thought the (emissions) targets were very ambitious,’ he says. ‘But the thing that made us really uneasy about our analysis … was that if our assumptions didn’t come true, you could come out with costs that were much, much higher.’”

Since 2001, energy prices have been exploding without America’s commitment to these ambitious targets. Beyond this, a huge source of contention from the left and the mainstream media has been the outsourcing of jobs to other countries. If America had fully committed to emissions targets in this Protocol, there is no telling how many more American jobs would have been moved overseas, and what the price of gasoline, natural gas, heating oil, and electricity would be today.

As a result, it is extraordinarily duplicitous for mainstream media outlets to complain about rising energy costs and outsourcing while advocating America’s involvement in a global warming treaty that exacerbates both.

Noel Sheppard is an economist, business owner, and contributing writer to the Free Market Project. He is also contributing editor for the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters.org. Noel welcomes feedback at nsheppard@costlogic.com.

Noel Sheppard [paste ends here] PhilBarnett12/13/0510:54PM

Here's a link to another example of MSM bias from Mr. Hugh Hewitt http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2006/01/22-week/index.php#a001111 01/22/2006 12:08 AM HT Phil Barnett


 * The fact that you're quoting a bunch of right-wing commentators does no credit to your argument. The fact that you've quoted in extenso from an article talking about The New York Times, and not the AP, suggests to me that you're merely raving and not actually trying to improve the quality of Wikipedia.  I'd like to see some actual evidence, rather than mere opinion piled on top of opinion, if you please.  (Or even if you don't please, for that matter.)  121a0012 06:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Check the dates on his postings - his irrelevant ranting seems to have faded, fortunatly. - DavidWBrooks 11:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Brooks you are the only irrelevancy here. Look at your own comments and see if they are on point, or attacks on others that are against your own police-state minded policies or merely your misdirected and uneducated and unabashed media bias. You sir are the greatest blogofool. And I really mean that as a compliment.


 * Here's somethin' relevant from your own well regarded Editor & Publisher:


 * AP's Bush 'Straw Man' Story: News Analysis Or Unlabeled Opinion?


 * By Joe Strupp


 * Published: March 22, 2006 12:55 PM ET :::http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002234267

Philip Barnet 7:40 PM HT 03/22/2006

Copyrights
Is the use of pictures made by AP on Wikipedia covered by the fair use principle? Meursault2004 13:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I doubt it, since member organizations pay to use them. - DavidWBrooks 16:12, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

How useful is it to provide doubtful opinion.

What needs to be determined and provided is a definition of "fair use" - if an item under copyright can be obtained under fair use, then it is irrelevant whether others have made their use under fair use or fees paid, or illegally. In this question, simply because an AP photo appears on Wikipedia does not make it fair game for fair use applications. It is the application or proposed usage which is the determining factor as well as the ownership status of the image. Personal, non-commercial use may be fine, for example. Rather than use hypotheticals it is better to state the context. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.58.152.179 (talk &bull; contribs).

Gitmo?
Why does the current events section consist of only Guantanimo Bay? How does this inform about the AP? It could show that the AP is willing to press for documents and such, but that is not how it is presented. I don't want to make bias accusations, but it could come off that way as currently presented. It would seem having a current events section in wikipedia at all would be less reflecting an encyclopedia and more reflecting a newswire.

Date Correction
The article states that asap was cancelled in October of 2007 in the past tense. There are either plans to cancel it in the future (in which case it should be in the future tense) or the date of the cancellation is incorrect. GCNM 15:50, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Fournier paragraph under Controversy Section describes no controversy other than being a conservative
No specific controversy was described in the part of the section describing fornier. Being a conservative does not make one controversial.

Sean7phil (talk) 18:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

John Solomon controversy
Is it me or does this section read like pre-election invective? Poorly sourced (e.g. blogs), highly-POV. The election is over, is this section really needed? At the very least is should be NPOV-ed and more reliably sourced. Ronnotel 18:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * AP officially responded to TPM and Media Matters. So they obviously thought it was notable.  Not sure what the point is of your "the election is over" bit; if it was encyclopedic before Nov. 7, I would think it is still encyclopedic now.  The blogs in question (TPM, Media Matters, The American Prospect) are all professional outfits not typical blogs: they have editorial oversight, bylines (i.e. they are not anonymous), etc. so they do meet the criteria of WP:RS.  As for "highly-POV", it would be helpful if you gave an example.  Crust 19:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * By the way, in which direction do you see the POV? I was assuming you're saying the POV is against the AP, but I thought I would confirm.  Note e.g. this article speaks of "a pair of misleading articles by John Solomon of the Associated Press" where the Harry Reid article uses the blunter "John Solomon of the Associated Press erroneously reported".  (Then again, perhaps you think the Reid article is POV also?) Crust 19:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Potential POV issues with this section include: Ronnotel 03:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * cites from only POV sources (i.e. self-described left-leaning blogs)
 * undue weight - blogs POV discussed in detail, AP's defense mentioned in passing
 * bias in tone - e.g. Solomon's work labeled as mis-leading, AP reply described as containing serious factual errors without adequate supporting evidence.
 * non-encyclopedic - article appears to use alleged political leanings of one reporter to indict entire organization - why is this relevant?


 * "Misleading" is documented by three external links and as I noted earlier the Reid article simply describes the reporting as erroneous (which needless to say, is a stronger statement). That certainly seems to me like adequate supporting evidence.  True, we don't go into the specifics of the issues with those two articles, and perhaps we should, but you're already complaining about undue weight.  As for "factual errors" (I've deleted "serious" as that is arguably a judgement call / POV), again that is documented with an external link.  How would you prefer to see it?  We could get into the details in the article -- they're pretty black and white.  One possibility is to separate off this section as a new article (similar to the Jamil Hussein controversy) and include a brief summary sentence here.
 * As for "one reporter", I find this line of argument as mystifying as your previous argument that maybe this was notable before the election, but is no longer.  One can equally say Jamil Hussein is "one source", but I don't see how that argument is relevant either. In both cases, AP has put its imprimatur on the reporting and criticisms of the reporting are also criticisms of AP. (Or maybe you want to argue the Jamil Hussein controversy is also non-notable / non-encyclopedic?) Crust 16:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Crust, please don't remove POV tag - policy indicates POV remains in place while discussion is on-going. The tag alerts others who may be able to help reach consensus. We obviously disagree - I think we should allow others to comment. Ronnotel 16:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Ronnotel, I would be grateful if you could state your issues in more detail and/or edit the section to correct what you see as POV / potential POV.Crust 17:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Misleading & factual errors are exceptional claims and require exceptional sources - more than three partisan blogs which are specifically discouraged under WP:RS - they don't belong here.
 * I don't believe the section was ever encyclopedic - my comment about the election was snark-ladden. This essentially boils down to "three partisan blogs disagreed with a damaging story about Harry Reid" - I don't see why this is important. I would say the same about an article about Bush.
 * The Jamil Hussein controversy is based on reaction from a foreign government and the U.S. military and touches on a potentially large body of work - I don't see the comparison.

However, if you want to split this into a separate article then go ahead. Ronnotel 17:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Silence interpreted as consent. Ronnotel 03:45, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

missing paragraph
It looks like there used to be something between the third and fourth paragraphs. The fourth begins

''It has also posed a threat to AP's financial structure. On April 18, 2005, at its annual meeting,''

but it isn't clear what "it" is referring to. Sevesteen 23:53, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing it out; I reinstated the paragraph deleted with this edit. -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs)  00:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Lead
The lead is fairly long for the size of the actual article. I haven't looked it over fully but there also might be events in the lead not covered in the article. The lead is supposed to be a summary of the body of the article. Quadzilla99 14:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

right wing bias
do yous think ap has a right wing bias? i think it does.

I don't think AP has so much a right wing bias as a progressively irritating habit of publishing unvarifiable "facts". There is not an article written these days that does not have a disclaimer that the individuals providing information are doing it on a condition of anynomity because they are not authorized to or the information is "classified". This is why people like Karl Rove get away with the kind of things they do.

I can tell you that information that cannot be independently verified is absolutely worthless. We all complain about how poor our performance as a nation and our Government has become. It is largely because we all swallow these undocumented and unvarifiable sources as gospel. We've become a country of fatted cattle that drink from the manure fed streams that AP and the other news outlets have become. Watch the news folks, these idiots are down to interviewing each others reporters to cross check the same source. It's idiotic and it's our fault. Take some responsibility. Vote and don't tolerate the unproffesional newsreporting that we see today. News is not entertainment. It's the information that you need to make informed decisions with.

Don't let "fact" be dictated by ratings. 74.0.180.66 17:45, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Concerned in CA

- Reuters has a controversy/criticism section on their page, it seems only valid to create one for the AP page as well, seeing as the "right wing bias" is something that is discussable at the very least. Perhaps something about how the AP and other major news corporations have been strong influences of globalizing information and providing little room for dissenting opinion and points of view, etc. Its a lot to ask but it seems only fair to call out the AP in a similar fashion that Reuters has. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.20.115.195 (talk) 07:08, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * What a joke, the AP has a substantial left wing bias and is constantly trying to push it's kookery on the rest of us normal folks. ;) --71.232.157.145 (talk) 13:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

If the controversy/bias section in the Reuters and CNN pages are appropriete, then what is needed here is a collection of quotes on the bias of AP. If there are quotable people saying AP is right wing/left wing then the fact that they said such things should be included here. I'm doing a media studies course in college and would greatly appreciate anybody's contribution to this part. Thank you!

Left, Right, After reading this I think you're all nuts. Myraedison (talk) 02:26, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Title
Is it Associated Press or The Associated Press? What is the company's legal name? Quadzilla99 17:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

>Definitely it's The Associated Press. The AP's official Web site displays the title of the page as to be The Associated Press, and in stories, sources often 'told The Associated Press.' Warwithwords (talk) 06:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The Associated Press exists as a redirect to this article. It wouldn't be too hard to swap them.
 * But they are hardly consistent about it. It is, after all, usually called AP and not TAP. Their Web site has Associated Press rather than The Associated Press prominently displayed across its home page. They have published books of articles which are credited to "Associated Press Staff" not "The Associated Press Staff." Similarly, the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography in 2005 went to "Associated Press Staff" not "The Associated Press Staff" - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:56, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I might add we refer to America as the United States, but the Wikipedia article is titled "United States." So I think we should leave this title unchanged. 71.11.215.216 (talk) 15:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Paris Hilton Hoax
Some apologist for the AP deleted this a "random" mishap and deleted the post. It was actually a national news story and displayed a serious lapse in journalistic standards. it was widely reported as it got over 86,000 hits on Yahoo   , including major articles on the Huffington Post and Power Line.


 * "Apologist" - well, glad to see you're approaching this in the mindset of assume good faith. If you think a celebrity goof-up is a "serious lapse in journalistic standards" that deserves prominent mention, then I think your priorities might be slightly out of whack. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Largest?
There is no source that says it is the largest news organization in the world. And even if there was, it would probably be an exaggeration. Doesn't BBC have the biggest audience anyway? Contralya (talk) 23:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Controversies section
I created a new "Controversies" section out of "Current events", as I had a "scandal" to move in from United States journalism scandals. I don't know if this is best for the article - but the story needed to be mentioned here (if it is mentioned there - the only place on WP it was mentioned). I directly moved all the text, as, per an AfD, that longer-list "article" may be merged into the simpler list of linked scandal-titles here: List of United States journalism scandals. --Matt Lewis (talk) 21:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Redirecting AP back to this article

 * AP was a disambiguation page flagged for clean-up, however after some consideration I converted it to a redirect to this page. For more info please see Talk:AP. Marchije (talk) 02:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a non-profit
The AP at large is not a non-profit organization. I have a confirmation e-mail I can provide, of their staff advising me that most people have the concept of the AP wrong, in that it is very much a for profit org. The status of this company needs to be changed on this article promptly. Please reply if you would like a screenshot of this e-mail.

Regards,

208.80.216.98 (talk) 19:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * He is right, how can an organization be non-profit if they posted an $18,528,000 income for 2005. If they are non-profit, there income for every year should be exactly $0.00 excluding donations. (The AP does not accept donations.)12.186.114.19 (talk) 21:36, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you're a little confused: non-profit doesn't mean non-income. They pay their reporters and editors and rent for offices, so they need income to cover that. They could be non-profit with a zillion-dollar income. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:27, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * DavidWBrooks is right that plenty of 'not-for-profits' actually do make an income, often on purpose. For clarity, profit is exactly what the term income means. Revenue covers salaries and rent.  Income (also known as earnings, profit or surplus) is what is left after the bills have been paid, and a non-profit (not-for-profit) has to keep it as retained earnings, that is as a reserve or to invest in the business (computers, vehicles, real estate.)
 * The term 'non-profit' usually means 'not-for-profit', meaning that profit is permitted, as long as it is used properly.
 * --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 01:41, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Which ones?
The article states that "the AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States" but it gives no indication of which papers and stations these may be. I for one think it is relevant and important information and should be included in the article, or at least linked to. --76.202.226.195 (talk) 21:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "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." ... that's a LOOOOONG list. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 21:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Revenue Totals
This is just a minor change, but should we rewrite the revenue totals to their decimal form (Maybe rouding three decimal places)? So instead of having $18,528,000, we can just write it as $18.528 million; maybe go as far as $18.53 million. It'll make it a little easier to read at first glance. 173.104.199.101 (talk) 07:25, 28 December 2008 (UTC)Dam1en

Leftist bias section
The AP has become a well known tool of the leftist movement. If you want Wikipedia to be a joke to serious scholars forever then keep pretending that white is black and that AP is a balanced news source. It sounds more like Obama's mouthpiece at this point than anything else. They even lie and say that Americans believe things they do not (right now they're trying to say that a majority of Americans want fascist government controlled healthcare forced on them). It also routinely ignores stories that might be a boost to the conservative movement and cover any and every story that could some how make leftist/"liberals" look good. Any conservative who's ever had any controversial belief has a criticism or accusation section. Right now the AP is at the very top of the leftist propaganda movement, that's a fact. You guys don't have to be fully honest but should at least acknowledge that a huge number of people feel that the AP is a joke and just a mouthpiece for a pagan movement that wants to take over the world with it's new version of religion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.109.157.245 (talk) 12:27, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

"Very liberal" in description
In the google search for Associated Press, the descriptive passage for Wikipedia-AP includes "is a very liberal american press agency." Someone, or somehow, "very liberal" has been added, which is not part of the descriptive on the main AP page of Wikipedia. Looks like political tomfoolery... Mrw1965 (talk) 16:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I moved this comment from the subpage found by clicking the link from "This article has an assessment summary page", but I think this comment is misplaced. "Assessment" seems to refer to the quality of the article. Lumenos (talk) 07:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Where does one find this "descriptive passage" you speak of? Lumenos (talk) 07:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Michael Newdow oath of office lawsuit
Is this an inconsequential error or a controversy? Who thinks, besides Newdow, of course, that it reflects a systemic bias or other problem with the AP? It is inaccurate but what's the controversy? It should be removed from this section. patsw (talk) 21:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

appellation of institution
the name is "The Associated Press" (see stylings (when AP is spelled out) throughout their website at ap.org). i am unschooled in how (and, as an unregistered wikipedia editor, probably unauthorized) to change an article's title. as such, am hesistant to change "Associated Press" references in article to "The Associated Press."--71.183.238.134 (talk) 11:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Mideast Conflict
Like many news outlets, it would be a good thing to write about AP's coverage of the Mideast conflict. I was looking at a few articles, and all I could find was Israel says this or Israel does that, which might hint at the fact that AP gets its information from official Israeli government sources. ADM (talk) 08:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Shepard Fairey section
Muddled. AP countersued S. Fairey, the article states, after Fairey sued AP over ...what?....{Quoting:"Fairey had sued the not-for-profit news cooperative the previous month over his artwork, titled "Obama Hope" and "Obama Progress," arguing that he didn't violate copyright law because he dramatically changed the image."} Is this factual? It seems that one would not sue AP and argue that your work didn't violate copyright law, unless you had been sued initially over your work violating copyright law. Otherwise there wouldn't be a reason to sue in the first place. Would there be? So what is the story here? Did AP sue Fairey first, and then he countersued, and then AP countersued him again? If AP sued first, then let's say so. I don't have a dog in this fight, but it would be nice to make sense of the issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Renglish (talk • contribs) 23:05, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Hope I am doing this correctly.. The AP didn't sue Fairey first. They tried to leverage licensing fees from him and threatened to sue... so He, along with Standford University, filed a pre-emptive lawsuit seeking what is called a declaratory judgement.

He later admitted to his deceit.http://www.thevine.com.au/news/articles/shepard-fairey-admits-lie.aspx Serialjoepsycho (talk) 05:51, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Cultural References
The Associated Press helped to establish the fame of the fictional town of Hadleyburg in Mark Twain's short story "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg." Psalm 119:105 (talk) 04:43, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Kids
We the Kids needs to be good in the class rooms and be repectful to other treachers so kids of Americans be nice and repectful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.211.4.253 (talk) 19:04, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Change Suggested regarding competition..
I would like to suggest that the following paragraph be changed as I think that as written it is no longer true. Although the AP is still the largest news service in the USA, competitors like AHN have emerged. the AP's suit against AHN on Hot News requires the element of competition and AP even referred to AHN as a competitor.

-- The economic demise of the long-time rival of the Associated Press, 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. Other English-language news services, such as Reuters and the English language service of Agence France-Presse, are based outside the United States.

Tomtasget (talk) 16:23, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Editorial control
To what extent, if any, is there any central editorial board which monitors or shapes the point of view expressed in AP articles? For example is the Media Matters post titled 'AP falsely claimed Obama has "delivered no policy speeches" on campaign trail' inherently misleading due to the lack of central editorial control? I believe so, but stand ready to be corrected., see my comment on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Fred Talk 17:29, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Thompson Reuters
In the last paragraph of the top section, it states that "[o]ther English-language news services, such as Reuters [...] are based outside the United States." Is this still true? Reuters was British until it was acquired by Thompson. Now, Thompson Reuters operates out of New York City.  Elunah であります  Rawr!   13:55, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Christopher Newton
This article in The New York Times presents Newton's side of the story, which is at odds with the AP's version of events. It should be included. 71.22.40.31 (talk) 08:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * And this source offers evidence that Newton was the victim of a hoax related to his work at the Justice Department. 71.22.40.31 (talk) 08:56, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Taiwan(R.O.C.) Presidential Election Section
This section does not appear to be on par with wikipedia's writing standards, nor does it appear unbiased. Perhaps it is original research? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.125.165.117 (talk) 08:33, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

For those of us who cannot decipher asian languages, there is no way to know whether the majority of given sources are reliable or not. Indeed, it does not appear to be unbiased and it is poorly written. I've tagged it in hopes that someone knowledgeable on the subject will improve it (preferably providing sources in english!). If it can't be improved, it should probably be removed.--Polly Ticker (talk) 20:26, 2 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Even if true, that section seems to describe trivial events that probably do not belong in this article. Minor controversies over news reports happen every day. I've moved the section here for reference in case anyone feels information in it should be salvaged. -- LWG talk 18:48, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Why Aren't The Names And Positions Of The People On The Board Of Directors Included In The Article?
Why is the information about the Board Of Directors and who the individuals are here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.0.225.130 (talk) 01:01, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Because someone has to update that every year. There's a limit to what people want to do, and if you really need to know you could probably find that on their site. 144.136.192.17 (talk) 01:10, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

AAP
I see a news service called "AAP" is that the same as "AP". It is on articles that look like AP articles. Here are some. Respond on my talk page please. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:49, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

History
If it is true that "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. An Illinois Supreme Court decision (Inter Ocean Publishing Co. v. Associated Press) in 1900—that the AP was a public utility and operating in restraint of trade—resulted in AP's move from Chicago to New York City, where corporation laws were more favorable to cooperatives.", then the NYAP was not the Associated Press. However, in its own "History" page, AP states that it was founded in 1846, which conflicts with these statements, but is consistent with NYAP having changed its name to the "Associated Press". Hence, this Wikipedia article has a major error, which I do not have the knowledge to correct.14:46, 4 July 2014 (UTC)72.94.38.61 (talk)

"AP has been accused of bias and dissemination of American state-sanctioned propaganda on multiple occasions."
This is what the "Controversies" section says, yet not a single example is cited. Why not? Esn (talk) 23:34, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Western Union deal and Republican Party affiliation
Tim Wu, in his 2010 book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, apparently says that the Associated Press was affiliated with the Republican Party during the Reconstruction Era. (I heard him talking about this on the radio.) He also said that it had an exclusive deal with Western Union making it the only real-time national news source (via telegram). This would be interesting to corroborate and add to the article. -- Beland (talk) 23:44, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Biased Reporting Section
In the Biased Reporting Section, there is mention of Mark Lavie's book Broken Spring. After summarizing some of Lavie's criticism of AP and allegations of biased reporting, the next sentence says that "Friedman noted the enormous influence of Human Rights Watch." It continues Friedman's criticism. Who is this Friedman? I can assume it might be the well known journalist Thomas Friedman, but that's not right. They should have included Friedman's first name. Just thought I'd bring that to people's attention, especially the editor who included the sentences about Friedman's criticisms so they can write his full name in the first sentence about him in the Biased Reporting Section. NapoleonX (talk) 04:56, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Inverted pyramid vs. feature or narrative
The AP has a separate dept. for news features and narratives. Led by such greats as Bruce DeSilva, the department has cranked out good features and narratives for papers that want them for many years.

The article wants us to believe that such a straight-forward style is novelty or endangered species. Neither is the case.

As a journalist who assists in editing my paper's wire (AP only) content, I would say that the majority of ap articles and alerts are still written as news articles (inverted pyramid and related structures like hourglass) in the ap's own style. A lot of AP content is borrowed from smaller daily papers and other news outlets as part of the AP's service agreement with these organizations. The AP then has a limited control of exactley what style of story it picks up (of course editing to AP style and satisfaction is always completed before the work is sent to other outlets).

So, the segment in this article mentioning a switch is needless as well as nonfactual. The majority of the AP subscribers would have a much greater need for journalism in strict style anyway. Just contact a news collecter like Yahoo or Google and see what kinds of stories they carry.

I think we need to see proof of this switch and impact of the bottom line. Please remove until such evidence is presented.

-- newsn —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.68.20.228 (talk • contribs) 20:54, 13 April 2007  (UTC)

Paragraph out of place, sensational
This paragraph (in the History section) is out of sync with the chonological narrative and makes sensational assertions without any specific evidence. When the Associated Press was founded, news became a salable commodity. The creation of the rotary press followed shortly after which led to the New York 'Tribune installing high-speed press in the 1870s allowing them to publish 18,000 papers per hour. During the Civil War and Spanish-American War, there was a new incentive to write vivid, on-the-spot reporting leading to the Graphic Revolution. This occurred making man's ability to make, preserve and transmit images and print of these events much more feasible. Due to the fact that printing speed had been dramatically increased, this movement was legendary and has the Associated Press to thank for this achievement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmccasland (talk • contribs) 04:09, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Non-profit?
I see the AP had net income -- aka profit after tax -- of $8.8m in 2009.

So is it strictly accurate to call it a non-profit organization? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.78.161.250 (talk) 05:40, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that the AP really behaves like a non-profit.. This may be it's "legal" business structure but the AP very often acts in ways that is directly competitive to its "members" and in fact its members don't provide the majority of news any longer. Tomtasget (talk) 13:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * No it doesn't and really isn't. When a lot of profit seeking entities create an entity like this and share its work product, that biz unit may not generate profit on its books but it's a flat lie that that enterprise isn't a part of the profit seeking overall operation of that industry association, it just isn't itself directly. The personnel, expressed viewpoints, management, etc. show very clearly what the real situation is here. This is a fairly large trope in American society, much less so of course at the time of the formation of the AP. Today the main form it takes is in some web/internet venture that claims to be non-profit, when what's actually meant is they're still trying to find a way to "monetize" it. The AP member papers had that worked out from the beginning with the inclusion of the APs work product in the papers they sell. The only bright spot in this lying to one's self is that it shows people have a vague clue there may be something wrong with profit (as opposed to earned income, productivity and other things it's conflated with). Lycurgus (talk) 10:26, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Non-profits may generate lots of income, amass wealth, and pay management or employees massive salaries. In general, they can't pay money to members of the governing board based on a proportion of the non-profit's income or liquid assets. A non-profit may be required to pay taxes, including federal corporate income tax, depending on the non-profit's activities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.38.61 (talk) 18:01, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Sea slavery and overreach Section
This portion of the article seems to be very sparse. It could be fleshed out such that those looking for a general summary on the topic rather than to read through the tagged sources. Additionally, it appears to be rather biased because one of the sources tagged is by the Associated Press and the other source is the only to give an opinion on the AP article. Mhowie2915 (talk) 19:12, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

The financial situation of the Associated Press
As shown in the time line, the AP has been struggling with a relatively slow financial decline. I believe there should be a section detailing how the Associated Press has been struggling in the past six years or so. This missing information makes the page appear out of date. There is only a vague reference to the decline of the once thriving news resource. Mhowie2915 (talk) 19:24, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Wildly morphing quotes
Hmm, so three years have elapsed since the AP pushed out their blog entry (April 2, 2013) about using the term "illegal immigrant". Another organization commented on this, while restating their own stance. Now the section Associated_Press has some strange mishmash of this and that smashed together.

The AP blog entry did not use the word 'dehumanizing'. ABC news reporting on that blog entry (April 2, 2013) used that word, and pointed at their own prior blog entry (Oct 2012) that also used that word, along with much other commentary not mentioned in the AP blog.

Ahh, the original edit 07:13, 8 April 2013 misstated events, conflating the two blog posts. I'm going to drop the sentence
 * The blog stated that the term was dropped due to the term dehumanizing individuals.

as that is more properly true of the ABCNews blog entry. (Oh, and all this is in reaction to someone dropping in the weasel word 'allegedly' modifying the quote of a blog of a comment on a blog of ... I'm sooo lost) Shenme (talk) 03:55, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Mistaken placement of sea slavery passage
Why is the description of the AP articles on "sea slavery" listed in the "Litigation and Controversies" section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.245.132 (talk) 21:11, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Title of page needs to be "The Associated Press"
The title of this listing is incorrect in calling The Associated Press "Associated Press." The latter is not the formal name of the organization. According to the AP Stylebook:

Associated Press, The The newsgathering cooperative dating from 1846. Use The Associated Press on first reference (the capitalized article is part of the formal name). On second reference, AP or the AP (no capital on the) may be used.

I fixed all incorrect instances of this throughout the article, but was unable to change page title. Wikirikki79 (talk) 16:53, 7 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I recently changed all cases of "The Associated Press" to "Associated Press" in this article, then saw that you had also recently changed them the other way. Complicating your suggestion is the fact that on their home page at ap.org they exclusively use "Associated Press", never "The Associated Press", even in their copyright statement. Be aware of WP:SPECIALSTYLE. I don't think we need to pay attention to their stylebook if they don't. Chris the speller   yack  03:08, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Another complication is the article Associated Press v. United States, which strongly implies that "The" is not part of the formal name, or at least it was not in 1945. Chris the speller   yack  03:17, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

(discussion moved from Chris the speller's talk page; apparently  did not see that I had already added to this discussion)


 * Thanks, Chris. I agree that they have a branding problem. There is, however, no guidance on their use of "Associated Press." It's simply an informal name that they sporadically use. The AP Stylebook is their official "spokesman," and it specifically says that the formal name of the organization is "The Associated Press." The section that I copied out of the Stylebook includes the part in parentheses. I did not add it. I guess they can call themselves whatever they want, but unless there is recent, cited evidence that this cited evidence from 2017 is now out of date - or a typo in their publications - those who write about the organization should follow the Stylebook. Even if they refuse to themselves. Wikirikki79 (talk) 13:33, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi Chris the speller,

Respectfully, your edits to The Associated Press page are in error. The AP Stylebook lays this out in clear detail. I cited it in my corrections to the article. Pick up a copy and check it out, or go to apstylebook.com. You can also see this in action by visiting their website at https://www.ap.org/about/.

"Associated Press" minus "The" is informal.

From the Stylebook:

Associated Press, The - The newsgathering cooperative dating from 1846. Use The Associated Press on first reference (the capitalized article is part of the formal name). On second reference, AP or the AP (no capital on the) may be used. Do not refer to APTN and AP Radio, units of the AP, as if they were separate entities. Say Alexander Barbosa told the AP [not APTN] in Rio de Janeiro; AP [not APTN] video journalist John Smith contributed to this report. The address is 200 Liberty St., New York, NY 10281. The telephone number is 212-621-1500. Online: http://www.ap.org See AP.

Best,

Wikirikki79 (talk) 13:23, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

(discussion moved here by Chris the speller   yack  13:47, 13 September 2017 (UTC))

Some points: Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. This includes usage in the sources used as references for the article.
 * The AP Stylebook is just the rules for writing AP articles. It doesn't apply to Wikipedia articles.
 * It doesn't matter what the AP calls itself. For the name of an entity, Wikipedia uses the name by which the entity is commonly known, which is usually the name used in reliable sources, especially the sources for the article in question.  I couldn't find this written in Wikipedia guidelines, but I did find this for the specific case of the article title, and I think it stands to reason that it would extend to references within an article:

There may be a complication here because the Associated Press is usually a reliable source for just about everything, so probably is for itself as well, which means its stylebook could actually determine indirectly what a Wikipedia article should call it.

My quick perusal of the sources for this article indicate the organization is commonly known with the "the". (As usual in names that start with articles, "the" is dropped when the name is used as an adjective).

But I don't think there's even a conflict here, because when I perused ap.org, I found most of its references as nouns include "the". Notable exceptions are the copyright notice and a page title that really functions as a logo. The copyright notice and the reference in the Associated Press v United States legal papers from 1945 may indicate that is its name for legal purposes, and that is not relevant to Wikipedia articles. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 16:00, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Their Twitter profile is clearly The Associated Press and their bio is "News from The Associated Press." I could not find a reporter for the organization whose bio says they work for "Associated Press." Not one. Unless it was used as an adjective. Wikirikki79 (talk) 03:30, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Syria section
Oof, I have three sources verifying the account. The first is a third party describing the incident, the second is AP's tweet admitting the incident, and the third is lasting proof of the incident. Topkecleon (talk) 21:18, 17 April 2018 (UTC) Also, I realize I botched one of the citations in my last edit to the article, although I was unable to fix it due to reversion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Topkecleon (talk • contribs) 21:20, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

This is about this revert.

Why, exactly, is AP making a mistake and issuing a correction encyclopedically singificant? They make many mistakes and issue many corrections and retractions. This was originally added years ago with PJ Media as a source, but that is a political blog, not a WP:RS. When that was trimmed, there was no sources left and it remained without any explanation of significance at all. I do not dispute that this happened, or that they changed their story, but adding this to a thinly disguised WP:CSECTION as though it reflected on their track record as a whole is deceptive. News outlets do this kind of thing often, and it's not particularly surprising or noteworthy. RT (TV network) is not particularly reliable in general, nor impartial for this content specifically. The "Business Insider" story is simply the original AP story republished through that site, which is neither reliable for commentary about the story itself, not indicative of the story's significance in any way. Grayfell (talk) 21:20, 17 April 2018 (UTC)


 * You're right, the only real claim of biased reporting was the act of putting that section under "Claims of Biased Reporting". The RT article doesn't even make such a claim. I was only adding sources. (Saying RT is not "particularly reliable" does not make that link an invalid source; as with all sources, it should be used with caution, although more perhaps than for some others. The contents of the RT article are demonstrably true, and it is the most significant news outlet that reported on the error.) Topkecleon (talk) 21:46, 17 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Wikipedia cannot decide if this is biased or not, only reliable sources can. As far as I can tell, AP didn't directly explain the change in the article itself. That's unfortunate, but its hardly a deadly sin. If RT is the most significant news outlet reporting on this error, that is a good sign that this isn't a significant error. Grayfell (talk) 22:13, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Reads like advertisement the introductory part
We don't care about it's fancy mission statement — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoandri Dominguez Garcia (talk • contribs) 07:47, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * we certainly do care about its mission statement. It's not selling anything to Wiki readers so it's not an ad. Rjensen (talk) 07:54, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Nothing on Pentagon pressure on AP journalists?
Nothing on ex-AP head Tom Curley's statements that the Pentagon was applying pressure (arbitrary detention) on AP's journalists during the Iraq war, and the 4,7 billion budget & 27000 employees for Pentagon influence operations?

'"Much like in Vietnam, "civilian policymakers and soldiers alike have cracked down on independent reporting from the battlefield" when the news has been unflattering, Curley said. "Top commanders have told me that if I stood and the AP stood by its journalistic principles, the AP and I would be ruined."' San Diego Union Tribune HuffingtonPost MSNBC — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.203.51.95 (talk) 16:43, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.203.51.113 (talk) 13:28, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

"Twitter crash" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Twitter crash. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 May 14 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm Talk 04:24, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

unevidenced claim
the history section includes the claim that: "When the AP was founded, news became a saleable commodity" and this I'm afraid requires a source. newspapers had been on sale for around three hundred years at that point, the first one in Europe was published in Vienna in 1566, and the AP was itself founded by three newspapers who were themselves already selling news. Wikipedia is not a place for personal opinion, if this claim does not have a source it will need to be removed.  Cottonshirt  τ   05:20, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Removed. In the future, please consider using the   template. Dan Bloch (talk) 21:30, 20 June 2022 (UTC)