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.
I was visiting my mom today and she told me the newspaper in her town had been bought out and the building was shuttered and sold. They are doing the whole operation remotely. She doesn’t even know how they are getting local stories. I do know that after the recent devastating storm that hit both of our towns, she had to rely on social media to get any sort of good information. Including finding out that a disaster had been officially declared and people were requested not to travel.
I hope this works out. Local news media outside of huge cities is 3 nextdoor posts in a trenchcoat.
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.
why is the APnews website so terrible that it heats up my phone?
