By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
As a young journalist fresh out of college, my dream was to become a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press, the largest and oldest news gathering organization in the world.
Better known in the news industry simply as The AP, it is not a stand-alone corporation like its former competitors, International News Service and United Press (later merged to become UPI).
Instead, it was organized in 1846 as a member-owned cooperative whose members are the newspapers, magazines, radio, and television outlets which pay to receive AP-produced news stories and photographs and audio and video recordings.
That uniqueness gives it the combined reporting resources of all of those media outlets in more than 250 locations in 100 countries around the world.
The Associated Press claims today that is dedicated to factual reporting and that it remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business.
To me, the most important fact about the AP is that more than half of the world’s population has the opportunity to see AP journalism every day. I also like the current motto of “Advancing the Power of Facts”.
The impressive background of The AP added to the level of disappointment I felt the first time I noticed that this great organization has joined the growing ranks of media companies who are asking their readers and/or viewers for cash donations to help pay operating costs.
The message is concerning to me because it means the free press guarantee in the U. S. constitution apparently is at greater risk than we realized. It saddens me that this proud old champion of press freedom has been reduced to begging for contributions ranging from $20 to $500 or more.
I’m proud that I spent nearly a year with The AP as a reporter in Ohio where I had incredible opportunities to cover important stories with national impact and which accelerated my personal growth as a journalist.
Frankly, today I seriously worry that our free nation cannot survive without a free press.
Contact Keith at keithkappes@gmail.com.
