NEW YORK (AP) — The Associated Press says it is setting up a sister organization that will seek to raise money in support of state and local news reporting, as the crisis in that sector shows little sign of abating.
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AP in particular can play an important role in bolstering coverage of government and political news in the states, said Tim Franklin, who leads the local news initiative at Northwestern’s Medill journalism school. The Pew Research Center has detailed that there are fewer full-time reporters working in statehouses than there were a decade ago.
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Besides philanthropy, the AP has been more aggressively marketing its own news website and asking for reader donations. “We believe there is a gap in the U.S. market, in the consumer arena, for people who want independent, fact-based, non-partisan news, and that’s the role that the AP plays in the ecosystem,” Veerasingham said.
AP’s move is a little self-serving as smaller news orgs are likely to use AP’s services (as well as Reuters’).
HOWEVER, I think this is a good thing as AP and Reuters’ normally provide news based on facts written by real people.
A few companies are buying up TV stations, newspapers, and radio stations and presenting opinion as news. Sinclair’s TV news is one example.