The Associated Press (AP) is a news agency founded in 1846 and headquartered in New York City. The derogatory nickname “Associated Propaganda” has been cited in print since at least November 1999.
 
Other Associated Press nicknames include “Disassociated Press” (since at least 1950), “Associated Depressed” (since at least December 2004), “Absolutely Pathetic” (since at least June 2006), “American Pravda” (since at least August 2008) and “Administration’s Press” (since at least October 2011).
   
   
Wikipedia: Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to use AP material without being contributing members of the cooperative.

As of 2005, the news collected by the AP is published and republished by more than 1,700 newspapers, in addition to more than 5,001 television and radio broadcasters. The photograph library of the AP consists of over 10 million images. The Associated Press operates 243 news bureaus, and it serves at least 120 countries, with an international staff located all over the world.
   
Google Groups: comp.software.year-2000
Newsgroups: comp.software.year-2000
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Date: 1999/11/05
Subject: AP == “Associated Propaganda”
 
Some of you may find this interesting:
http://www.nitronews.com/dowbenko.html
A “secret history” of the Associated Press. Read, and be assured that any Y2k news from the AP is wholly balanced and unbiased.
 
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From: “EVAGORAS”

Date: 1999/11/09
Subject: (AP) ASSOCIATED PROPAGANDA
 
(AP) ASSOCIATED PROPAGANDA
HISTORY OF A “NEWS” SERVICE
 
ClutchFans
ROXTXIA
12-09-2003, 04:49 PM
AP = Associated Propaganda. They are the first people the government calls when it wants to get out its own version of a story. In fact, you might as well say the CIA has people on the AP payroll.
 
Conspiracy Planet
AP (Associated Propaganda) Shills for Bush-Cheney
by STEPHEN CROCKETT/ AL LAWRENCE
(July 26, 2004) The AP story giving Bush the lead in the elections is faulty.

Recently, the Associated Press ran a story that was widely published in newspapers and on the Internet, headlined “Bush Leads Kerry In Electoral Votes,” that could have been written by the Bush campaign
 
Google Books
International Currency Review
Volume 30
2004
Pg. 50:
For instance, in mid-October, Associated Press (dubbed ‘Associated Propaganda’ by one visceral Internet analyst), released a report to the effect that President Bush Jr. had won the November election.
     
The West Virginia Rebel’s Blog
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Associated Propaganda
It seems the AP has been caught in an about-face.

Democratic Underground
jeff30997
Sat Aug-23-08 02:53 AM
15. AP = Associated Propaganda
And you can’t write Associated without ass

View from the Right
AP stands for Associated Propaganda; NYT stands for DNC
Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 24, 2009 10:37 AM
Two examples of how mainstream journalism has become simply an organ of left wing propaganda , without even a pretence of being journalism. The first is from the AP: ...