bigstory.ap.org is a wing of the Associated Press news agency.
News collected by the AP is then published by more than 1,700 newspapers and over 5,000 television and radio stations.
Claims of bias reporting is infrequent with the AP, but they are not completely without controversies or headline retractions. Still, deliberate fact-distortions run counter to their business model and bottom line, which relies heavily on their ability to sell stories to a wide array of media outlets.
However, as Conservapedia reminds us, the AP did engage in the possibly-overzealous-even-if-totally-necessary fact-checking done on Sarah Pahlin’s 2009 book, Going Rogue. (AP responded to this criticism on Politico.) While the sheer weight of bullshit in that book warranted such attention, it would be nice if they applied this diligence to every book “written” by a politician running for office.
We’re fond of saying “check the source,” even and especially for sources we mark as Real. That proves a tad difficult when the vast majority of other sources pull directly from AP, with little to no additional reportage of their own to add. Still, for our purposes, we consider bigstory.ap.org to be a source of real news. Just don’t be shocked if you stumble across a retraction or two.
