Associated Press Lays Off 20 Journalists in Pivot to Visual Journalism

On the morning of May 15, 2026, the News Media Guild received an email from an Associated Press human resources official. The message was terse: the company was implementing layoffs, and the affected employees' last day of work was that same Friday [1]. Twenty U.S.-based journalists were out.

The cuts completed a restructuring announced in April 2026, during which AP offered buyouts to more than 120 journalists, with roughly 40 accepting [1][2]. But the May layoffs are only the latest chapter in a sustained contraction at the 180-year-old wire service. In November 2024, CEO Daisy Veerasingham told staff that AP would reduce its global workforce by 8% — approximately 345 positions out of an estimated 4,300 employees — through a combination of buyouts and layoffs [3][4].

The stated rationale: AP is no longer a newspaper company, and its operations need to reflect that.

The Business Case: Follow the Money

The financial logic behind AP's pivot is stark. When the cooperative was founded in 1846, its entire revenue came from newspapers. Today, newspapers account for roughly 10% of AP's income [2][5]. Over the past four years, AP's newspaper revenue has declined by 25% [1][6]. Two of the largest U.S. newspaper publishers — Gannett and McClatchy — dropped AP in 2024, and Lee Enterprises has been seeking an early exit from its contract [5][6].

Source: AP/PBS/Fortune reporting

Data as of May 15, 2026CSV

Meanwhile, revenue from technology companies has grown 200% over the same four-year period [1][5]. AP's customer base is now dominated by broadcasters (37% of revenue), digital outlets, and tech firms [7]. The organization has signed licensing deals with OpenAI for its news archive dating to 1985, with Google for its Gemini chatbot, and with the prediction market Kalshi for election data [5][6]. AP also operates an intelligence division selling data to financial and advertising clients through platforms like the Snowflake Marketplace [5].

Executive Editor Julie Pace framed the restructuring as proactive rather than reactive. "We're making these changes from a position of strength, but we're doing so now to recognize our changing customer base," she told PBS [6]. In a separate interview, she was more blunt: "We're not a newspaper company and we haven't been for quite some time" [6].

What "Visual-First" Means in Practice

AP says it has doubled its number of U.S. video journalists since 2022 and now has more visual journalists on staff in the United States than any other news agency [2][8]. The restructuring is designed to accelerate a shift toward what Pace called "digital-first, visually led journalism," with an emphasis on rapid-response reporting and beat coverage built around video and photography [2][8].

The organization's visual infrastructure is already substantial. AP Images distributes more than 3,000 photographs daily, and the archive holds over 60 million photos and 2 million video stories [7]. AP launched APTV in 1994, merged it with Worldwide Television News to form APTN in 1998, and became the first news agency to offer live video in 2003 [9]. In that sense, the current pivot extends a pattern of format adaptation that stretches back to AP's entry into radio broadcasting in 1941 [9].

AP has also invested in AI-powered search across its visual library, consolidating millions of images and video clips on a single platform for clients [7].

The Union's Counterargument

The News Media Guild's response was sharp. "Today's cuts show just how directionless AP's leadership has become," said Kimberlee Kruesi, an AP reporter and the guild's acting president. "The company touts that it is prioritizing visual journalism, yet among the 20 employees sacked today are experienced photographers" [1].

That contradiction — firing photographers while declaring a visual future — is the union's central critique. The guild has also argued that AP management "refuses to offer [journalists] appropriate training and tools" to adapt to the new model, preferring instead to invest in artificial intelligence [5][10]. The union says AP has ignored requests to bargain over AI implementation [5].

The guild's complaint raises a question about the net headcount change. AP has not publicly disclosed how many new visual journalism roles it is creating to offset the departures. While Pace said the overall global staff reduction would be "less than 5%" [2][8], the specific numbers remain opaque. Between the roughly 40 buyout acceptances and 20 layoffs in the latest round alone, at least 60 U.S. positions have been eliminated since April, on top of the broader 8% reduction announced in 2024 [1][3].

Source: AP/PBS/Fortune/TheWrap reporting

Data as of May 15, 2026CSV

Scale in Context: A Pattern of Contraction

The May 2026 layoffs are modest by AP's own history. In 2009, the wire service cut 80 to 90 positions, including 33 reporters, 19 editorial assistants, and 5 photographers, and closed several smaller domestic bureaus [11]. The November 2024 round was far larger in absolute terms, targeting roughly 345 positions globally, with 121 union members aged 54½ or older eligible for buyouts that included severance pay and partial health coverage for 18 months [3][4].

The 20 layoffs in May 2026 represent less than 0.5% of AP's estimated 4,300-person global workforce [4]. But headcount figures alone can be misleading. The question is not just how many people leave, but which beats, bureaus, and regions lose coverage.

AP has said it will maintain reporters in all 50 states [2]. But the restructuring is concentrated among U.S.-based editorial staff, and the pivot away from text-based wire reporting — the format that has traditionally carried the heaviest load in statehouse coverage, legal reporting, and incremental policy stories — leaves open questions about depth. Wire service text dispatches are the backbone of coverage for hundreds of small and mid-sized newspapers that cannot afford their own correspondents in Washington or state capitals.

Coverage Gaps and the Information Ecosystem

The risk is not abstract. As Editor & Publisher reported, newspapers are increasingly narrowing their focus to local news while cutting spending on wire services that provide regional, national, and international coverage [10]. With AP pulling back from text-oriented reporting and newspapers simultaneously reducing their own capacity, the result could be widening blind spots in the American news diet.

No other wire service operates at AP's domestic scale. Reuters maintains a significant U.S. presence but is primarily oriented toward financial and international news. Regional wire cooperatives have largely disappeared. Digital-native outlets like Axios and Politico cover national policy but not the granular, state-by-state reporting that AP has historically provided.

AP's own answer to this gap is the AP Fund for Journalism, a standalone nonprofit launched in 2024. Backed by more than $30 million from the Knight Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and the MacArthur Foundation, the fund provides AP content and services to local newsrooms free of charge [12]. It currently serves 100 newsrooms and aims to reach 150 by the end of 2026 and 300 by 2028 [12]. Whether philanthropic subsidies can sustainably replace commercial wire subscriptions remains an open question.

Can Visual Journalism Carry Investigative Weight?

The steelman case for AP's pivot rests on two arguments. First, every previous format transition — from print to radio in 1941, to television news in the 1990s, to mobile in 2008 — ultimately expanded AP's reach rather than contracting it [9]. Second, visual journalism is not inherently less rigorous than text. Documentary investigations, data visualizations, and video exposés have won Pulitzers and driven policy changes. AP's own photographers and videographers have produced some of the organization's most consequential work.

Research on multimedia journalism supports the idea that visual formats can effectively communicate complex information, with video adding layers of immediacy and credibility that text alone cannot provide [13]. Interactive data visualizations and embedded multimedia allow a single digital story to carry more information than a traditional wire dispatch.

But critics note an asymmetry: a 90-second video clip and a 2,000-word wire story serve different functions. The video captures a moment; the wire story provides context, background, and the connective tissue that lets editors at subscribing outlets build their own coverage. Replacing one with the other is not a lateral move — it changes what kind of journalism gets produced and distributed.

The union's concern is that "visually led" is a euphemism for cheaper and shallower. Video journalists on rapid-response beats produce high volumes of short-form content; long-form investigative work, statehouse monitoring, and beat reporting on regulatory agencies do not translate as easily to visual formats.

Severance, Union Rights, and Accountability

The May 2026 layoffs are governed by AP's collective bargaining agreement with the News Media Guild. The November 2024 round offered severance pay and 18 months of partial health coverage to buyout-eligible employees [3]. The guild has not disclosed whether the same terms apply to the 20 journalists laid off in May, and AP's director of media relations, Patrick Maks, described the cuts only as "part of the restructuring we announced last month to align our operations with what our top customers need from us today" [1].

Notably absent from AP's public statements is any set of measurable editorial benchmarks that would define whether the visual pivot succeeds or fails. Leadership has articulated a business strategy — follow the revenue toward broadcasters and tech companies — but has not committed to specific coverage metrics, investigative output targets, or geographic coverage minimums that would let outside observers evaluate the trade-offs.

The Bigger Picture

AP's restructuring is happening against a backdrop of accelerating contraction across American journalism. One in five Americans now regularly gets news from social media influencers, 77% of whom lack journalism backgrounds [10]. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, founded in 1786, announced its closure in 2026 [14]. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution announced a $150 million expansion, a rare counter-example in an industry where the trend line points firmly downward [10].

For AP, the fundamental tension is between commercial survival and editorial mission. The cooperative's revenue has shifted decisively away from newspapers and toward broadcasters, tech companies, and AI licensees. Restructuring to serve those customers is a rational business decision. But AP is not just a business — it is the primary source of national and international news for hundreds of outlets that cannot produce it themselves. Every position eliminated, every beat left uncovered, every story that goes from 2,000 words to 90 seconds represents a decision about what Americans will and will not know.

The 20 journalists who lost their jobs on May 15 are a small number in a large organization. Whether they represent the leading edge of a deeper retreat from text-based accountability journalism — or a routine adjustment in a company that has successfully reinvented itself many times — depends on what AP does next, and whether anyone is keeping score.