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Hot Off the Associated Presses
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Business New Haven
9/01/2003
By: Melissa Nicefaro
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When a reader picks up the local newspaper, whether it is the New Haven Register, Hartford Courant or Connecticut Post, the bylines often read: Associated Press. Unlike Reuters and Bloomberg and other news organizations or wire services, the Associated Press (AP) is a not-for-profit organization owned by its 1,500 daily newspaper members and broadcasters.
AP spokesman Jack Stokes says not many people know the news organization is just that — an organization, and not a corporation.
"We are owned by our members, who are daily newspapers and broadcast stations here in the United States," explains Stokes. "It’s virtually everybody. Most of the newspapers and broadcast stations in the United States are members of the Associated Press."
Stokes explains: "Part of the basic contract between members and the AP is that we exchange information in the form of stories. We have our own staff around the world that generates its own news. But here in the United States, we also have access to our daily newspapers’ local news. We send out those stories that are available to all of our members."
Members elect a board of directors that works with the executive staff to run the AP, the oldest and largest news organization in the world.
The AP has 242 bureaus worldwide and has local news bureaus in New Haven, Hartford and Stamford.
While the down economy is having a sure-fire and direct impact on newspapers’ bottom line in the form of weak advertising dollars, the AP is immune to advertising woes. The organization is not, however, completely immune to economic affects.
"Membership comes with basics that we provide our members," Stokes explains, "and we also provide extra services for fees, and there is pricing involved in that.
"The economy doesn’t necessarily change the basics of what we provide to our members, or what they are entitled to take from us," he adds. "But when there are tight times, any additional news services that we are providing might not get the same reception as during good times."
The AP also provides material and services for non-members and as Stokes explains, revenues from sale of these items is accounted for as "non-traditional" income.
"We provide all services to members, and some to non-members," he says. "During tough economic times, that’s where you would see fluctuation in terms of someone tightening their budget and not taking these additional services."
The AP was founded in 1848 by ten men from six New York City newspapers who were looking for a solution to the costly collection of news by telegraphy. The founders agreed with cooperation from publishers at other newspapers, news could get from the southern and western United States and countries abroad to New York. That six-newspaper cooperative now serves 15,000 news organizations worldwide, according to the AP.
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