If you restrict your attention to the individual member journalism outlets which are part of the associated press, they individually pass the buck and it stops nowhere. But if you look at the Associated Press as a whole, its employees and its member outlets, the entity as a whole violates the Sherman Antitrust Act and systematically libels identifiable people. Specifically, anyone who is representative of the middle class - elected or otherwise.
When telegraph bandwidth was scarce and expensive, the AP seemed to serve a valuable function and was viewed as being "too big to fail." Now with the Internet, which is enabled by fiber optic cables and satellite communication, whatever bandwidth economies are achieved by the AP "wire are de minims in value. This posting can be read anywhere in the world that the government (e.g., of China) doesn't actively interfere with that possibility - and I'm supposed to be impressed by the transmission capabilities of the AP? Break it up!!!
Might well be helpful but I would ask, into what? From my perch it looks like the good little leftist soldiers J schools have turned out over the last couple of generations will still be the prevalent players regardless of where or how they end up. The media muckity mucks will continue to embrace marxist ideology, probably to their dying breath. Dissolve AP altogether and distribute the assets, such as they are, to the media owners? What then? Will a conservative leaning "wire" service of sorts spring up to take its place? I doubt it and anyhow, WHO would see to it that conservative values were represented in the "news"? Would wealthy conservatives, such as the Koch brothers for example, jump into the melee? Doesn't seem likely now given the fact the news delivery industry is circling the drain.
For the life of me I can't see look far enough ahead to see how this will end. What do Pravada and Izvestia look like now since the ostensible breakup of the Soviet Union? Maybe more importantly and more to our point, what does TASS look like today?