Pharos University In Alexandria Faculty of Mass communication

International Communication

Week :7 Lecture :7

By: Dr: Zenat Abou Shawish 2013

Assessment

associated press

1 -The Associated Press

has been breaking news since it was created in 1846

Global media

2 -That year, five New York City

newspapers got together to fund a pony express route through

Alabama in order to bring news of the Mexican War north more

quickly than the U.S. Post Office could deliver it.

3 -In the decades since, AP has been first to tell the world of many of

history’s most important moments, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the bombing of Pearl

Harbor to the fall of the shah of Iran and the death of Pope John Paul .

4-More than 30 AP journalists have given their lives in this pursuit of the news. “I go with Custer and

will be at the death,” AP reporter Mark Kellogg wrote before

Custer’s final stand against the Sioux. And so he was .

5 -One reason for AP’s longevity has been its ability to adapt quickly to

new technologies. When it was founded, words were the only

medium of communication .

Global agencies

6 -The first private sector

organization in the U.S. to operate on a national scale, AP delivered news by pigeon, pony express,

railroad, steamship, telegraph and teletype in the early years.

7-In 1935, AP began sending

photographs by wire. A radio network was formed in 1973, and an

international video division was added in 1994.

8 -In 2005, a digital database was created to hold all AP content,

which has allowed the agency to deliver news instantly and in every

format to the ever expanding online world.

9 -Today, AP news moves in digital

bits that travel nearly as quickly as the news itself unfolds, to every

platform available, from newspaper to tablets. AP’s video division is

now the world’s leading video news agency .

10 -Often called the “Marine Corps of journalism”—always first in

and last out—AP reports history in urgent installments, always

on deadline.

11 -AP staff in 300 locations in more than 100 countries

deliver breaking news that is seen or read by half the

world’s population on any given day.

12 -It remains a not-for-profit

cooperative, owned by 1,500 U.S. newspapers, which are both its

customers and its members. A Board of Directors comprised of publishers,

editors, and broadcast and radio executives oversee the cooperative .

13 -In 2003, AP moved from its long-time headquarters at Rockefeller

Center to its current global headquarters, on the West Side of

Manhattan, where it could integrate its all-format news

department in one space.

14 -In the process of that move, AP

established a Corporate Archives, which has since been

carefully documenting the story of AP from its beginnings.

15 -In old AP periodicals we discovered

the story of correspondent Frank Martin’s 13-day hike from Ledo, China in 1944 to link up with Gen.

16 -Vinegar Joe” Stillwell’s forces in Burma. The road was strewn with the skeletons of 30,000 refugees, Martin noted. At one

point he encountered a tribe of Naga headhunters singing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm, E-I-E-I-O.” The tribe had been taught the song by a missionary,

after which they cut off his head .

17 -On occasion, the findings have

been flattering. During the Civil Rights era, newspaper editors concerned that AP reporting of

racial tensions might upset their readers pressured AP to identify

blacks as “Negroes ”.

18 -Other historical findings reinforced AP’s remarkable role as eyewitness to history, such as when AP correspondent Joseph I.

Gilbert borrowed President Lincoln’s handwritten text of the Gettysburg Address

so he could copy it. Gilbert’s account of Lincoln’s speech stands as the most

accurate version of what Lincoln said that day.

19 -Even in this digital age, AP remains

the definitive source for reliable news across the globe. While the company has gone from distributing news via

pony express to instantaneous digital transmission, its news values and

mission remain the same .

20 -“The people of the AP are part of the

fabric of freedom,” said former board chairman Frank Batten. “They are the

honest messengers, mostly anonymous, far from the limelight, often at risk and

always committed to getting out the news as thoroughly and as accurately

as possible ”.