The AP is offering buyouts in a pivot away from newspapers
For 180 years, ever since it was founded by five New York newspapers in 1846 to help share the costs of reporting on the Mexican-American war, newspapers have been a part of the Associated Press’ business. Today, it announced that’s changing, and has offered buyouts to an unspecified number of journalists based in the U.S. as part of a shift toward 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.”
“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 the AP’s own David Bauder. While they once accounted for the majority of the AP’s revenue, big newspapers now only make up 10% of the organization’s income. That revenue has fallen by 25% over the past four years, in large part because Gannett and McClatchy, two of the largest newspaper companies in the U.S., stopped publishing AP wire content in 2024. According to Bauder, the AP had also learned that Lee Enterprises, another large newspaper publisher, was seeking an early exit from a contract that was set to expire at the end of the year.
Pace told Bauder that whether or not the company conducts layoffs will depend on how many people take the buyout. Still, Pace said, “The AP is not in trouble…We’re making these changes from a position of strength but we’re doing so now to recognize our changing customer base.” The AP will be upping its video teams, as well as adding journalists to beats “on topics of known customer interest.” It will also still have journalists in all 50 states.
Lately, the AP has been looking to tech companies for revenue (and says its revenue from such deals has grown by 200% over the last four years). It’s made deals with Google and OpenAI, and in March announced a deal to provide election data to the prediction market Kalshi. Elections in particular are a big money-maker for the AP; last year ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN all signed up for its service providing election data.
According to the AP News Guild, the union representing AP staff, 120 people were offered buyouts. The union also said that the AP ignored a union request to bargain over artificial intelligence.
“AP continues to get rid of experienced staff and flirt with artificial intelligence” the union said in its statement, “ignoring the opportunity to differentiate AP stories as ones that are and always will be created by human journalists.”
Statement from on #AP buyouts today from the union’s executive committee. @NewsMediaGuild pic.twitter.com/jB9DICuNiD
— AP News Guild (@APNewsGuild) April 6, 2026
I got my start in journalism by writing stories for the Associated Press in Curaçao.
Really sad to see the abandonment of reporting and the written word.
— Karen Attiah (@karenattiah.bsky.social) April 6, 2026 at 1:43 PM
The Associated Press is pivoting away from… journalism. We’re well and truly cooked folks.
— Meghan Herbst (@megherbst.bsky.social) April 6, 2026 at 1:40 PM
uh oh what are they gonna put in the w*shington p*st … https://t.co/pIxTb1sFia
— Caroline O’Donovan (@ceodonovan) April 6, 2026
Well, as they say on @LinkedIn, I might be really Open to Work soon! I’m still loving what I’m doing at AP, but new challenges are fun too. If you know of something that might align with my skills and interests, hit me up!https://t.co/Q1v4rKp35X
— Mike Sisak (@mikesisak) April 6, 2026