The Associated Press announced this week it is offering employee buyouts to its U.S.-based reporters and editors, a reduction of 120 staffers who represent 5% of its worldwide workforce. The most recent round of layoffs and buyouts, an 8% percent reduction, occurred in 2024.
The buyouts are part of a restructuring plan because the AP, which traces its roots to 1846, is pivoting from traditional newspaper coverage to digital-based journalism after 180 years of news reporting.
Dan Schneider, of the Media Research Center, tells American Family News the internet has transformed news coverage but the bigger issue for MRC is witnessing the shrinking influence of left-wing media.
“The Associated Press has been so rigged against anybody right of center,” he said. “It’s approval ratings have tanked, especially among Republicans.”
American Family News, which has a contract to publish AP wire stories and photos, regularly edits biased words, phrases and sentences in original stories sent by AP and its editors. One frequent example is the phrase “gender-affirming care,” the term used by proponents of transgender-related medical treatments. AP uses that term as a neutral description, forcing AFN to delete it in news stories.
In an update to its style guide, the AP famously began capitalizing "Black" for people with an African heritage, but it refused to capitalize "White" for Caucasians over fears it would encourage white supremacy.
So the view of many, Schneider insists, is the AP is “getting its just desserts.”
According to Schneider, the next media-altering frontier is artificial intelligence. He predicts it will eventually dominate the entire distribution of information and will also do so with a left-wing bias.
