What the AP is and how it works

[jmowreader]

Most of us here believe the Associated Press is a "right wing" news organization. It is, but it's more complex than News Corporation, which is Rupert Murdoch hiring a bunch of people who think just like him to fill the ears of the American public with propaganda.

The Associated Press is a "news cooperative" founded in 1846, during the Mexican-American War. Five newspapers banded together to share the costs of transmitting news of said war, and originally they used telegraph lines and the mails. Today it's 1400-odd newspapers.

There are four parts to the AP. There's a video service I don't know much about, so just know it exists. The most important part of the AP are the 1400 "member" newspapers, plus the thousands of "subscriber" papers. The difference is in how you interact with the AP Wire, which is the backbone of the organization. (RIght now the AP Wire is a satellite feed, but it's going to go on the Internet--you'll need a password to access it and you can only get one if you're a newspaper--sometime this year.) A Subscriber newspaper can pull stories and photos off the AP Wire and use them. A Member newspaper also puts the stories and photos it runs in its own paper on the Wire--it doesn't have to put ALL the stories it writes on the Wire, and normally it won't, but it can. The fourth part is the network of AP Bureaus, whose reporters and photographers are employed by no paper but can be published in thousands. IIRC there are about 300 Bureaus around the world. Now for the fun part: most AP stories do NOT say what newspaper they originated at. You could have three stories from Seattle, one written by a leftist who got hired by the Times by accident; one from a right-winger who works at the Times; and one by a centrist at the Seattle AP Bureau; and they'll all start the same way: SEATTLE (AP) --

Knowing that any Member newspaper can publish anything it runs in its local edition to the AP Wire is important in knowing how the AP got as right-wing as it is, because there are some seriously right-wing newspapers out there. The AP Wire has THOUSANDS of stories on it; if you were to publish every story on the Wire in your newspaper you'd have to put the paper on the subscribers' porches with a forklift. Every paper has a fairly senior editor whose job it is to pick out the handful of AP stories he wants to use in the morning's edition. Combine a Wire that's filled with stories from right-wing rags with a bunch of non-liberal editors at the nation's newspapers, and guess what you're going to get from the AP?

I don't know if there is a solution. The whole heart of the service is newspapers posting their articles online so other papers can use them; if the majority of submitting newspapers are run by right wing publishers, what can you do?

[Brickbat]

1. Most larger papers subscribe to more than one wire or news service, and a really excellent wire

editor can combine stories or catch inaccuracies by comparing wires, but if all you have is AP...well, you can't spell CRAP without AP.

[jmowreader]

4. The problem is, there aren't very many wire services

Unless you're on McClatchy, Gannett or Belo's wire services (which means you're a McClatchy, Gannett or Belo paper), or you subscribe to one of the European wires, AP's what there is. In the old days there was UPI, but the Moonies bought it and it subsequently died.

[Bitwit1234]

2. Well we know that the republican corporations own the media

conglomerates. So what's new the bought AP a couple of years ago. McClatchey was they only one they didn't have their clutches on and I think they are buying that now.

[madokie]

3. Back in the watergate/nixon days the AP wasn't to be trusted no matter the content

they were as right wing as the right can be. When we were reading something to do with the nixon crimes all we had to do is look to see if it was an AP story and if it was you could bet your bottom dollar that whatever they said was a lie.


I remember it well If that helps any