Episode summary
Associated Press CEO on the Future of News | At Barron's
At Barron's
· · Hosts: Andy Serwer · Guests: Daisy Veerasingham
Summary
The Associated Press is trying to balance a traditional licensing business with new revenue streams as the news industry weakens. Daisy Veerasingham says the AP is a nonprofit, independent cooperative with no owner or shareholders, and that its core job is to fund journalism by reinvesting every dollar it makes back into the organization.
Veerasingham argues that the AP is not trying to compete head-on with its media customers as it pushes a direct-to-consumer strategy. Instead, she says the AP is targeting a niche audience that wants nonpartisan reporting, while also expanding revenue through advertising, donations, subscriptions, philanthropy, and international sales. She says about 40% of revenue now comes from outside the United States and that broadcasters, corporations, and tech platforms are becoming more important than U.S. newspapers.
She also describes the AP’s AI strategy as a licensing-first approach: protect the AP’s intellectual property, secure fair value for its journalism, and use guardrails as the technology changes how news is produced and consumed. Beyond business, Veerasingham says covering Gaza and Ukraine is extraordinarily difficult because staff safety is the overriding concern, and she notes the AP is still fighting a White House lawsuit while continuing to cover the presidency normally.
Key takeaways
- Veerasingham says the AP is a nonprofit cooperative with no parent company, no corporate owner, and no shareholders, so revenue is reinvested into journalism.
- She says the AP’s direct-to-consumer push is aimed at a niche audience seeking independent, nonpartisan facts rather than competing with customers.
- About 40% of AP revenue now comes from outside the United States, and broadcasters, corporations, and tech platforms are becoming bigger customers than U.S. newspapers.
- Veerasingham says the AP’s AI deals are built around two principles: protect intellectual property and secure fair value for journalists’ work.
- She says the AP has made more than 75% of its total output visual, reflecting how digital audiences engage with news.
- Veerasingham says the AP still maintains a 50-state reporting footprint and is using a new fund to support local newsrooms and news deserts.
Notable quotes
“the AP is an independent notfor-profit news organization and we're predominantly a B-toB provider”
“nobody does really. I think that's what makes it truly independent”
“it provides the same news report to every single news organization every single day. We don't change it and we don't nuance it”
“AP's intellectual property must be protected and we must maintain or gain a fair value for what our journalists do every single day”
“Our estimate is that we actually reach half of the world's population every single day”
How the episode opens
Hello everyone and welcome to At Barrens. I'm Andy Sirwart and welcome to our guest Daisy Vera Singum who is the CEO of the AP. Daisy, nice to see you. — Thank you very much for inviting me. — So I want to start off by asking you to tell us about the business model of the Associated Press. How does the business of the AP work? So the AP is an independent notfor-profit news organization and we're predominantly a B-toB provider. So think about any media or information business anywhere in the world. Chances are they're a customer of the Associated Press.
And so how does the model work for those customers then? They're subscribers.
Yeah. So predominantly it's a licensing or subscription models. There are some variable models um to deal due to with services but it's predominantly a licensing model that has begun to change as all news organizations are thinking about how do they diversify the revenue streams that support them.
So we have recently in the last few years moved into more of a direct to consumer strategy as well. It's not a big part of what we do but it is part of our diversification strategy. Yeah, I want to ask more about the diversification and the DTC, the direct to consumer part.
But first, how long have you been CEO number one and number two, who owns the AP?
Okay, so I am about to complete four years uh CEO of the Association of Press. And I think who owns the Associated Press? Well, nobody does really. I think that's what makes it truly independent. It started um in 1846 as a newspaper cooperative. It was a way of sharing costs essentially to cover the United States. And essentially that is still its structure today.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- future of news
- news media leadership
- journalism industry
- digital transformation
- media business model
Watch the episode
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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