Associated Press

In May 1846 Moses Yale Beach, publisher of the New York Sun, persuaded the leaders of four other New York newspapers to invest in an effort to bring reporting from the Mexican-American War to Northeastern readers faster than was otherwise possible. Couriers on horseback carried dispatches to Montgomery, AlabamaAlabamaAlabama is a U.S. state in the Southeast on the Gulf of Mexico, with its capital at Montgomery. It was admitted to the Union on December 14, 1819, as the 22nd state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 5,024,279 residents.Open the full entry, and stagecoaches took them on to the southernmost U.S. telegraph office, in Richmond, VirginiaVirginiaVirginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state whose capital is Richmond. It entered the Union on June 25, 1788, as the 10th state, and had a population of 8,631,393 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, for transmission to New York.⁠[1]

In 1848 six newspapers pooled funds to finance a telegraph relay of foreign news brought by ship to Boston, the first U.S. port of call for westbound transatlantic ships.⁠[2]

In 1856 the cooperative was renamed the New York Associated Press. It sold its service to regional newspaper groups, whose pressure later forced changes in its control, and in 1862 Midwestern publishers formed the Western Associated Press.⁠[2]

Unlike most American outlets of the time, it served both Democratic- and Republican-aligned publications; its first Washington bureau chief, Lawrence Gobright, said in 1856 that his dispatches confined themselves to plain facts. During the Civil War, with access to 50,000 miles of telegraph lines, its dispatches regularly carried battle results within a day.⁠[1]

In 1892 the Western group broke away and was incorporated separately in IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is a state of the United States that borders Lake Michigan and the states of Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa; its capital is Springfield and its largest city is Chicago. It was admitted to the Union on December 3, 1818, as the 21st state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 12,812,508.Open the full entry as the Associated Press. In 1900 the regional organizations merged and the modern Associated Press was incorporated. A suit by the Chicago Inter Ocean, a non-member paper, alleging a monopoly prompted the move to New York, where the organization could keep strict control over membership, including blackballing applicants.⁠[2]

In the early 1940s Marshall Field III, founder of the Chicago Sun, fought his exclusion from the agency’s service, and a federal antitrust prosecution followed.⁠[2]

The agency’s bylaws barred the sale of its news to nonmembers, restricted members from giving spontaneous news to nonmembers and let members block competitors’ membership applications; a contract with a Canadian press association required each side to supply news only to the other. The government sued under the Sherman Antitrust Act and won summary judgment in the district court. The Supreme Court of the United StatesSupreme Court of the United StatesThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court of the U.S. federal judiciary. Established under the Constitution and the Judiciary Act of 1789, it has consisted since 1869 of a Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices and sits in Washington, D.C.Open the full entry heard argument on December 5, 1944, and on June 18, 1945, affirmed the judgment, with modifications, by a 5–3 vote.⁠[3]

Justice Hugo Black wrote the opinion of the Court, which stated that the First Amendment rests on the assumption that “the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential” to the welfare of the public.⁠[4]

For many years the agency leased more than 400,000 miles (644,000 km) of telephone wire; from 1952 radio teleprinters reduced the need for leased wire. In 1967 it joined Dow Jones & Co. to launch the AP–Dow Jones Economic Report, a global business and financial news service. It went on to introduce DataStream (1972), LaserPhoto (1976), the “electronic darkroom” (1979) and LaserPhoto II (1982), described as the first satellite color-photograph network.⁠[2]

In the early 1980s it had about 2,500 reporters and correspondents, bureaus in more than 100 U.S. cities and 50 other cities worldwide, and news from about 100 countries; more than 100,000 reporters at member papers contributed, and it had more than 6,500 newspaper clients.⁠[2]

The AP Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, first published in 1977, became the standard newswriting style guide in the United States.⁠[2]

In 1994 the agency launched AP Television (later the London-based AP Television News) and AP All News Radio, and in 1996 the online news service The WIRE. In the early 21st century it added a blog, asap (a multimedia service for younger audiences), citizen journalism and the Mobile News Network.⁠[2]

On September 1, 2021, the agency named Julie Pace, its assistant managing editor and Washington bureau chief, senior vice president and executive editor, effective immediately. She had joined in 2007 as a video producer and became the third consecutive woman in the post, which women have held since 2002. The agency then had journalists in 250 locations in 100 countries.⁠[5]

On August 3, 2021, the agency announced that Daisy Veerasingham, its executive vice president and chief operating officer, would succeed the retiring Gary Pruitt as president and CEO on January 1, 2022, becoming the 14th leader in its 175-year history and the first woman, first person of color and first international citizen to lead it. A British national of Sri Lankan descent, she joined AP Television News in London as sales director in 2004, became senior vice president and chief revenue officer in 2019 and executive vice president and chief operating officer in February 2021. During Pruitt’s nearly 10 years as CEO the agency won six Pulitzer Prizes, including its first gold medal for public service.⁠[6]

From February 2025 the White House barred the agency’s reporters from some events after its stylebook kept the traditional name “Gulf of Mexico” rather than adopting “Gulf of America.” After seeking to have the restrictions dropped, the agency sued in February 2025.⁠[7][8]

On April 8, 2025, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden ordered the administration of Donald Trump to restore the agency’s journalists’ access to the Oval Office, Air Force One and White House events. Under the First Amendment, he held, once the government opens its doors to some journalists it cannot shut them to others because of their viewpoints.⁠[7][8]

On April 16, 2025, the agency accused the administration of defying the order by excluding its journalists from some events and limiting access for all wire services, including Reuters and BloombergBloomberg L.P.Bloomberg L.P. is a global financial technology, data and media company founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981. It began by providing terminal services that deliver data, analytics and news to financial professionals, and launched Bloomberg News in 1990. Michael Bloomberg has pledged the vast majority of the company’s profits to his philanthropic organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies.Open the full entry; the new policy placed wire services in a rotation with about 30 newspaper and print outlets.⁠[8]

On June 6, 2025, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit voted 2–1 to pause McFadden’s order. Judge Neomi Rao, joined by Judge Gregory Katsas, wrote that the injunction “impinges on the President’s independence and control over his private workspaces”; Judge Cornelia Pillard dissented.⁠[8]

BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry records that the agency employs about 4,100 administrative, communications and editorial workers worldwide and has received more than four dozen Pulitzer Prizes.⁠[2]

In 2021 the agency stated that its journalism reaches more than half the world’s population every day.⁠[6]