Associated Press
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a cooperative organization of newspapers with the purpose of collecting the news. To save the individual paper the enormous expense of gathering the world's news single-handed, this association maintains an agent in practically every city. This agent telegraphs news to one of the central bureaus, which, in turn, transmits it to all the papers in the membership, or such portions of it as each desires. Any reputable newspaper may join the association by paying its weekly share of the expense, unless a competing paper published in the same town and already a member objects. As first formed in 1848 it was an arrangement among seven New York city papers. There are two large rival organizations in the United States . A corresponding means of gathering important news in Europe is called Reuter's Agency. The chief aim of the Associated Press is the promotion of efficiency and economy in gathering news. While its service is, on the whole, excellent, it burdens the wires with a vast mass of trivialities and wearisome repetitions and elaborations that are a source of annoyance to the genuine newspaper man. It has also been charged with coloring its reports at the suggestion of great interests involved. In the case of a measure before Congress, as, for instance, the ship subsidy, the charge is made that news on that subject is distorted to create sentiment in favor of, or to remove objections to the measure. In the case of a corporation charged with appropriating state timber, it is possible for a powerful political clique to induce reporters to withhold damaging facts and statements.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's noted in 1910 that a paper could be blackballed by a member rival in the same town; the U.S. Supreme Court struck down exactly that veto as an antitrust violation in Associated Press v. United States (1945), forcing the cooperative open. The "two large rival organizations" have since collapsed into one another and then into near-nothing: Hearst's and Scripps's services merged as United Press International in 1958, and UPI shrank to a shadow after bankruptcy in the 1980s, leaving AP without a domestic peer. The old complaint that AP reports were "colored" at the suggestion of great interests gave way to the opposite reputation, built partly on the AP Stylebook, first issued in 1953 and now the standard rulebook for American newsrooms. What has not changed is the basic machinery Aiton's described: a member in one city files, a central desk relays to all, and on election night American media still wait for AP's count.
Written for this edition, 2026.