section_path: History
section_name: History
paragraph_text: History
  
  The Associated Press was formed in May 1846 by five daily newspapers in New York City to share the cost of transmitting news of the Mexican–American War. The venture was organized by Moses Yale Beach (1800–68), second publisher of The Sun, joined by the New York Herald, the New York Courier and Enquirer, The Journal of Commerce, and the New York Evening Express. Some historians believe that the New-York Tribune joined at this time; documents show it was a member in 1849. The New York Times became a member in September 1851.
  
  Initially known as the New York Associated Press (NYAP), the organization faced competition from the Western Associated Press (1862), which criticized its monopolistic news gathering and price setting practices. An investigation completed in 1892 by Victor Lawson, editor and publisher of the Chicago Daily News, revealed that several principals of the NYAP had entered into a secret agreement with United Press, a rival organization, to share NYAP news and the profits of reselling it. The revelations led to the demise of the NYAP and in December 1892, the Western Associated Press was incorporated in Illinois as the Associated Press. A 1900 Illinois Supreme Court decision (Inter Ocean Publishing Co. v. Associated Press) holding that the AP was a public utility and operating in restraint of trade resulted in the AP's move from Chicago to New York City, where corporation laws were more favorable to cooperatives.
  
  Melville Stone, who had founded the Chicago Daily News in 1875, served as AP general manager from 1893 to 1921. The AP adopted teletype for its New York service in 1914. The cooperative grew rapidly under the leadership of Kent Cooper, who served from 1925 to 1948 and who built up bureau staff in South America, Europe and (after World War II), the Middle East. Under Kent Cooper, the AP became a more prevalent member of a press agency cartel made up of Reuters and Havas (now Agence France-Presse). He lobbied for the renegotiation of the tripartite contract binding the agencies and their respective news markets at the League of Nations in 1927, attempting to give the AP a more important place in competition with Reuters. In 1935, the AP launched the Wirephoto network, which allowed transmission of news photographs over leased private telephone lines on the day they were taken. This gave the AP a major advantage over other news media outlets. While the first network was only between New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, eventually the AP had its network across the whole United States.
  
  In 1945, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Associated Press v. United States that the AP had been violating the Sherman Antitrust Act by prohibiting member newspapers from selling or providing news to nonmember organizations as well as making it very difficult for nonmember newspapers to join the AP.
  
  The AP entered the broadcast field in 1941 when it began distributing news to radio stations; it created its own radio network in 1974. In 1994, it established APTV, a global video newsgathering agency. APTV merged with Worldwide Television News in 1998 to form APTN, which provides video to international broadcasters and websites. In 2004, the AP moved its headquarters from its long time home at 50 Rockefeller Plaza to 450 West 33rd Street in Manhattan. In 2019, AP had more than 240 bureaus globally. Its mission—"to gather with economy and efficiency an accurate and impartial report of the news"—has not changed since its founding, but digital technology has made the distribution of the AP news report an interactive endeavor between the AP and its 1,400 U.S. newspaper members as well as broadcasters, international subscribers, and online customers.
  
  The AP began diversifying its news gathering capabilities. By 2007 the AP was generating only about 30% of its revenue from United States newspapers, and by 2024, this had declined to 10%. 37% came from the global broadcast customers, 15% from online ventures and 18% came from international newspapers and from photography.
  
  In March 2024, Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation, announced that effective March 25, 2024, it would no longer use content from the AP. A spokesperson for AP said that they were "shocked and disappointed" by this development. Newspaper chain McClatchy announced that it would also stop using some AP services. Gannett and McClatchy will both continue to use AP's election results data.