Associated Press

:This article concerns the news service. For other uses, see AP (disambiguation).

History

AP was formed in May 1848 by representatives of six competitive New York newspapers, who wanted to pool resources to collect news from Europe. Until then, newspapers competed by sending reporters out in rowboats to meet the ships as they arrived in the harbor. The following year it opened the first bureau outside the U.S., in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to meet ships from Europe before they docked in New York City.

Related Topics:
1848 - U.S. - Halifax - Nova Scotia - New York City

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• 1861: Facing censorship in covering the American Civil War, reporters first filed under the anonymous byline "from the Associated Press agent."
• 1876: Mark Kellogg, a stringer, becomes the first AP correspondent to die in the line of duty, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. His final dispatch: "I go with Custer and will be at the death."
• 1899: AP uses Guglielmo Marconi's wireless telegraph to cover the America's Cup yacht race off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, the first news test of the new telegraph.
• 1914: AP introduces the Teletype, which transmitted directly to printers over telegraph wires. Eventually a worldwide network of 60-word-per-minute Teletypes is built up.
• 1935: AP starts WirePhoto, the world's first wire service for photographs.
• 1941: AP expands from print into radio.
• 1994: AP launches APTV, a global video newsgathering agency.