NEW YORK., April 7, 2026: The internet put pressure on journalism, forcing many newspapers out of business and forcing those left to reinvent their business models to survive. Because of the manpower required for gathering and reporting news across the globe, many newspapers relied on newswires to pool from reporters across the nation for news reports. One of the most important wire services was the Associated Press (AP).
Yesterday, the Associated Press announced that it is cutting around 5% of its global news staff as it looks to build up its digital platform at the expense of traditional newspaper news. It is offering buyouts to several of its U.S.-based journalists. According to the AP, the News Media Guild told them more than 120 AP journalists received buyout offers.
AP’s Executive Editor and Senior Vice President, Julie Pace said that the AP is “not a newspaper company and we haven’t been for quite some time.”
The latest round of job cuts at the AP follows the 8% workforce layoff at the news outlet in 2024.
Since 2023, the AP has been selling its content to artificial intelligence (AI) provider OpenAI and Google contracted with the AP to deliver news through its Gemini chatbot last year. The AP has used AI tools to publish financial earnings reports, sport updates and for summarizing news content since 2014.
Pressure on journalists has been intensifying over the last year with Business Insider, CNN, NBC News announcing layoffs in their newsrooms as they also pivoted towards digital news services. The Washington Post laid off about a third of its workforce last February.
Why It Matters
As a newswire, the AP acted as the news hub for local newspapers, TV stations and radio, helping to bring national and global news coverage to local audiences. In smaller communities, the AP was the single most important news source for readers in those communities.
More significant is that the AP’s commitment to digital news will make it more difficult for local news operations in small-to-midsize cities to publish news stories, even if online only. This is because the AP and other news outlets will control – through monetization – how smaller news outlets publish their content, in effect closing most smaller publishers.
Additionally, news content will now be gated through Big Tech companies like Google and Meta who are becoming the defacto news gatekeepers for news consumers.
Already, news content from wire services like the AP are cost-prohibited for smaller newsrooms making it difficult to keep independent newsrooms producing local news.
The AP offers customized, usually based on audience size, licenses to smaller newsrooms to republish its news content. The fees range from a couple of hundred dollars to thousands of dollars each month. The AP also offers a free service to newsrooms through its AP Fund for Journalism program for non-profit newsrooms and those in “news deserts.”
The AP’s move towards digital news is helping to enhance the centralized news ecosystem that increases reliable news inequality that has been growing over the last couple of decades further eroding credible and equitable news for people across the nation and the globe, especially in mid-to-small sized communities.
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