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

Associated Press (via U.S. News & World Report)

U.S. center to lean-left

Owned byThe Associated Press is a not-for-profit news cooperative owned by its member U.S. daily newspapers and broadcasters. U.S. News & World Report, which syndicates this AP content, is a privately held company owned by real estate and media investor Mortimer Zuckerman (since 1984), with Eric Gertler serving as executive chairman and CEO.
FundingThe AP is funded by fees paid by member news organizations, content licensing, and commercial syndication agreements; any surplus is reinvested into operations rather than distributed. U.S. News & World Report is funded by digital advertising, licensing of its rankings data (colleges, hospitals, cars), and subscriptions.
On the administrationbroadly critical

Background

The Associated Press was founded in May 1846 when five New York City newspapers pooled resources via telegraph to cover the Mexican-American War, originally calling themselves the Harbor News Association. It was restructured as a formal not-for-profit cooperative in 1900, allowing member outlets to share newsgathering costs and distribute reporting nationally. By the mid-20th century, the AP had grown into the largest wire service in the United States, with content now reaching more than 1,300 newspapers, broadcasters, and digital platforms worldwide. The organization has won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other news outlet and maintains a reputation for factual accuracy; media bias monitors place it near the center of the American political spectrum, with AllSides rating it 'lean left' and Ad Fontes Media rating it roughly neutral. In February 2025, the Trump White House barred AP reporters from Oval Office and Air Force One pool events because the AP refused to replace 'Gulf of Mexico' with the administration's preferred term 'Gulf of America.' The AP filed a federal lawsuit, won a preliminary injunction in April 2025, but a federal appeals court allowed the ban to continue pending full review; as of mid-2026 the case remains unresolved. U.S. News & World Report, which distributes AP wire stories on its platform, was founded as a weekly print newsmagazine in 1933, purchased by Mortimer Zuckerman in 1984, and converted to a fully digital publication in 2010, now best known for its annual rankings of universities, hospitals, and other institutions rather than for original breaking news.

Sources

  1. Associated Press – Wikipedia
  2. Associated Press Bias and Credibility – Media Bias/Fact Check
  3. Associated Press Media Bias – AllSides
  4. AP Bias and Reliability – Ad Fontes Media
  5. AP reporters barred from White House events over editorial style policy – U.S. Press Freedom Tracker
  6. Federal court upholds White House restrictions on Associated Press – JURIST
  7. White House ban on Associated Press can continue, appeals court rules – CNN Politics
  8. RCFP: White House's AP press access ban violates First Amendment
  9. U.S. News & World Report – Wikipedia

Profile compiled 2026-07-14; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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