The Associated Press, which for 180 years has been an aggregate newspaper company, has finally realized legacy papers are a fool’s errand.
The company announced Monday it’s offering buyouts across the board in a transition to AI.
The news organization says it’s becoming more focused on visual journalism and developing new revenue sources, particularly through companies investing in artificial intelligence, to cope with the economic collapse of many legacy news outlets.
Once the lion’s share of AP’s revenue, big newspaper companies now account for 10% of its income, according to a report by AP writer David Bauder.
“We’re not a newspaper company and we haven’t been for quite some time,” Julie Pace, executive editor and senior vice president of the AP, told Bauder.
Over the past four years, the AP’s revenue from newspapers has declined by 25 percent. Gannett and McClatchy, two of the largest traditional newspaper publishers, dropped AP in 2024.
In recent days, the company learned that Lee Enterprises – publishers of newspapers like The Buffalo News, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Richmond Times-Dispatch – is seeking an early exit from a contract due to expire at the end of 2026.
Pace said the buyout plan was in the works before learning about Lee Enterprises. “We made a decision earlier this year that we needed to be bolder in this transformation,” she said.
The Buffalo paper until a year ago was run by Tom Wiley, who jumped from the frying pan into the fire – to supposedly oversee the Portland Press Herald.
Wiley went from one dinosaur to another, becoming the CEO of the National Trust for Local News, which allegedly runs the Press Herald from its headquarters in Colorado.
Since he took over the trust, it’s sold dozens of papers, apparently realizing what the AP just did – legacy journalism is a dinosaur.
Newspapers ‘Big Fail,’ AP Transitioning To Artificial Intelligence
By Ted Cohen
