Pressure of Truth
The news, with the spin made visible.
Outlet profile

Associated Press (via local affiliates)

U.S. center / center-left

Owned byMember-owned nonprofit cooperative; approximately 1,300 U.S. newspaper and broadcast organizations are dues-paying members who collectively own the AP
FundingPrimarily content-licensing fees paid by global media subscribers (roughly 82% of revenue in 2023); supplemented by commercial services (broadcast facilities, software), philanthropic grants from foundations including Knight, MacArthur, Lilly Endowment, and the Omidyar Network, and a small and growing stream of consumer donations
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

The AP was founded in 1846 by five New York City newspapers — led by the New York Sun's Moses Beach — to share the cost of transmitting dispatches from the Mexican-American War by telegraph, an early example of news-gathering economies of scale. It grew throughout the 19th and 20th centuries into the world's largest wire service, supplying text, photos, audio, and video to thousands of outlets globally. Its cooperative structure was deliberately designed to prevent any single owner from controlling its editorial output. As print newspaper circulation declined in the 2000s and 2010s, U.S. newspaper members shrank to roughly 10% of total revenue; the AP diversified into international broadcast licensing, digital services, and, more controversially, philanthropic grants from progressive-leaning foundations, which critics say create a conflict of interest. Media bias evaluators — including AllSides, Ad Fontes Media, and Media Bias/Fact Check — place the AP near the center of the political spectrum, though several note a modest left-of-center tilt in story selection and framing. In early 2025, the Trump White House banned AP reporters from Oval Office events and pool coverage after the AP refused to adopt the administration's preferred term 'Gulf of America' in place of 'Gulf of Mexico'; the AP sued on First Amendment grounds, won a lower-court ruling, then lost on appeal at the D.C. Circuit. The dispute became a defining episode in AP's relationship with the current administration.

Sources

  1. Associated Press — Wikipedia
  2. Associated Press Media Bias | AllSides
  3. AP (Associated Press) Bias and Credibility | Media Bias/Fact Check
  4. AP | Bias and Reliability | Ad Fontes Media
  5. AP sues Trump White House for denying access over 'Gulf of Mexico' row | NPR
  6. Judge orders White House to give AP access to Oval Office | NPR
  7. Trump Boasts 'Big Win' Over AP After Appeals Court Rules White House Can Ban AP Access | Variety
  8. How Associated Press is future-proofing revenues | Press Gazette
  9. AP Fund for Journalism | InfluenceWatch
  10. In-Depth: The Nuanced Ownership of The Associated Press | St. Augustine's University

Profile compiled 2026-07-08; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

← Back to track record