Commentary —

Associated Press – Friend Or Foe

By William A. Collins

All the news,

That’s fit to see?

Please don’t count,

On old AP.

If a significant event, report or trend occurs in the United States or in the world, but the Associated Press doesn’t report it, did it really happen? Or if AP articles consistently reflect a particular corporate social bias, can we feel satisfied that we have sufficient information to decide on important public matters?

These are not idle questions. Connecticut newspapers are relatively small and lack the luxury of nationwide or worldwide news-gathering staffs. Thus, without exception, they all depend on AP.

That’s bad news. No, it’s not that AP is owned by a mammoth grasping corporation in hot pursuit of its quarterly profit. Rather it is owned by about 1,500 local newspapers in hot pursuit of theirs. Not surprisingly then, news articles regularly cater to the financial and political interests of these papers’ often wealthy owners, and of course, their advertisers.

This bias shows up strongest on the business page. Reflecting the preference of local publishers, AP lists on its website 27 business editors. No editors, though, for workers, unions, consumers, renters, unemployed, co-ops, public agencies, or other non-advertising entities. Further, within each article the same bias prevails. In shorter pieces the only sources quoted will be government officials and business “experts,” frequently stockbrokers. In longer pieces, for which there is rarely room in Nutmeg papers, a labor leader or skeptical professor or think tank fellow may get a paragraph.

The goal, naturally, is to make all economic news sound rosy, or at least not as bad as it appears on its face. It’s important that investors remain cheerful and keep buying stocks, and that financially injured workers not realize how many of their colleagues are in their same boat.

AP also feels constrained to support the political establishment, in this case, (but not in Bill Clinton’s) the White House. It can’t afford to suddenly find itself the last one notified of fast-moving events, or to be hinted as “leftist.” Consequently when the White House complained in December that too much Iraq news was negative, instantly casualty reports disappeared from front pages. Lately those numbers and other unpleasant war events have been buried deep in the paper. They are also generally buried within the now-shortened articles, which do their darndest to find something good to report.

Thus to a large degree our local papers are the unfortunate prisoners of what the tainted AP sends them. Worse luck they generally don’t seem to mind. In any case they lack the money to subscribe to Reuters or some other more balanced syndicate.

Political campaigns are handled in much the same manner. When Howard Dean, a (dangerous) Washington outsider, was the leading Democratic contender, every criticism against him, real or imagined, gained print. Conversely when Carol Mosely Braun dropped out and endorsed Dean, the silence was deafening. Dennis Kucinich? Who?

Nor does poor AP get to break any hot news. The big papers that dominate its board get to do that. This hardly spurs an investigative spirit among the world’s largest collection of reporters.

My own favorite coverage lapse is the annual peaceful protest at the Army’s thuggish School of the Americas. Thousands march, scores are imprisoned, all is peaceful, but nothing by AP appears in Connecticut papers or anyplace else.

Want an exercise? Look at today’s business section of your paper and count up the corporate/government spokesmen against the non-corporate ones. You’ll get the drift.

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk.)