Nearly half the world’s population sees AP-produced news on a typical day
The Associated Press marks 180 years of news gathering with a retrospective on the wire service’s role in chronicling the American republic. The AP traces its origins to 1846, when five newspaper publishers in New York City agreed to pool resources to speed delivery of news about the U.S. war with Mexico.
The original arrangement relied on a pony-express relay running through Alabama to reach a telegraph office, allowing publishers to share war news more quickly than any single paper could gather it alone, according to the AP retrospective.
The wire service today operates on a vastly different scale. The AP claims that approximately 4 billion people — nearly half of the world’s population — see news produced by the company on a typical day.
For most of its history, the AP functioned as an anonymous utility, distributing material for other news outlets to print, broadcast or carry online. AP reporters weren’t even identified with bylines until World War I, according to the retrospective, and the wire service’s journalists have remained largely anonymous even as the company chronicled the nation’s biggest moments.
The anniversary piece, written by AP journalist David Bauder, is part of the wire service’s “America at 250” series marking the 250th year of the American republic. The article previewed “stories behind the stories” the organization has chronicled — accounts of how AP journalists covered major moments in American history.
Although horses have long since given way to the internet, the AP wrote, the journalism remains.