Politics

Who Is Writing the AP's Headlines on the Protests -- the GOP?

By Lisa Graves

Madison, Wisconsin -- The Associated Press (AP) has been covering the Wisconsin protests this past week, in a way.

With the wave of cutbacks at papers across the nation, big and small circulation papers rely on the AP for wire stories that are re-published in local papers. It describes itself as "the largest newsgathering organization" in the world. With few national outlets having reporters located in Madison or Wisconsin, the AP is a dominant vehicle for sharing information about what is happening in the state with the rest of nation. The AP is also the dominant news feeder for Yahoo News, and Yahoo is now one of the top five most-trafficked websites in the world. So it matters whether the AP is fairly covering the news, in the headlines and in the bodies of its stories. (The Center for Media and Democracy is on record as a strong critic of corporate media, like the AP.)

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Full post as published by PR Watch on February 20, 2011 (boomark / email).