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.
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.