The Fall and Fall of the Associated Press

American Thinker ^ | 30 Mar, 2025 | Rajan Laad

[asinclair]

We were founded as an independent news cooperative whose members are U.S. newspapers and broadcasters

I think many of you are missing the point. As a cooperative, the AP mirrors the bias and attitudes of its membership. Journalists and mud-slingers are overwhelmingly Left in viewpoint, so of course the cooperative would mirror this.

For the last quarter of the twentieth century, "the news" has been saturated with practitioners who are Left and Center Left, with the right-wing population very, very small -- to the point that being a "right wing publication" was a rara avis. This has bled into the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Rush Limbaugh was the leading wedge of "right think" into AM radio; starting from his time in Sacramento, his audience slowly grew to the point that others felt safe enough to join in. Interestingly, the "new media" has a larger fraction of conservative practitioners. Of note: the "new media" is NOT populated by graduates of journalism schools. That's a tell as well.

So to lambaste the Associated Press for reflecting the views of its membership is foolish. The new voices, and new companies, won't join the AP because of its current skew. That means the AP won't move to the right because of new media. Could a new cooperative rise from the Right? Good question.

[libertylover]

"Since 1846, we have been breaking news and covering the world’s biggest stories, always committed to the highest standards of accurate, unbiased journalism.

If that was ever true, it's not true now. See Tagline.

[Inyo-Mono]

"From delivering the news via pony express in 1846..."

False statement right there, the Pony Express only existed for 18 months starting in 1860, it ended in 1861 with the establishment of the transcontinental telegraph.

[cgbg]

I don’t care why the Associated Press is our enemy.

All that is important is they are our enemy—and anything we do to reduce their influence (example: cutting off government direct and indirect funding) is a good thing.

[GingisK]

whose members are U.S. newspapers and broadcasters

Everything above spelled correctly. Grammar good as well.

[catnipman]

two things awakened me from political apathy and the bias of the media:

1. Tom Brokaw droning on about semi-automatic “assault” rifles, while in the background, silent vid clips were showing steady arcs of cases being ejected from machine guns ...

2. An AP sob-story article by then cub-reporter Fareed Zakaria about how the Somalia pirates were just trying to support their poor families, and in an interview with a pirate, Fareed referred to the pirate as “Mr. Pirate”, and i thought, WTF?

[Bikkuri]

I was talking about in general.
All of the “ou” instead of just “o”.

[Texas Fossil]

AP = Always Propaganda

[GingisK]

Ouh, I see. ;-D