You are right-—Lincoln did co—opt the AP, but the change was broader (obviously, the Confederate news services were doing it too). And Leonard’s history of newspapers, “News For All,” suggests that change was slower and less far-reaching still. Even after the CW, for example, you still had the “penny press”/”yellow press” which MOSTLY covered scandal and crime, but was still anything but “objective.”
You are right-—Lincoln did co—opt the AP, but the change was broader (obviously, the Confederate news services were doing it too).
Not only so, but southern states had been restricting the deployment of telegraph lines long before the Civil War. There simply weren't that many telegraph lines in the South. Hardly any, compared to the North.