The torch is passed

by Associated Press

A wonderful read from the Associated Press about the life and times of President Kennedy.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Presidents

99 pages, Board Book

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

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 5,000 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.

Associated Press also operates The Associated Press Radio Network, which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. The AP Radio also offers news and public affairs features, feeds of news sound bites, and long form coverage of major events.

As part of their cooperative agreement with The Associated Press, most member news organizations grant automatic permission for the AP to distribute their local news reports. For example, on page two of every edition of The Washington Post, the newspaper's masthead includes the statement, "The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to use for re-publication of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this paper and all local news of spontaneous origin published herein."

The AP employs the "inverted pyramid formula" for writing that enables the news outlets to edit a story to fit its available publication area without losing the story's essential meaning and news information.

Cutbacks at longtime U.S. rival United Press International, most significantly in 1993, left the AP as the primary nationally oriented news service based in the United States, although United Press International still produces and distributes news stories daily. Other English-language news services, such as Reuters and the English-language service of Agence France-Presse, are based outside the United States. More recently launched internet news services, such as All Headline News (AHN) are becoming competitive to the traditional wire services like the AP.

Reviews

[David Czuba · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic pictorial of the events of Kennedy's assassination in Dallas and the funeral in Washington, with details about the assassin, brought to the public as witnessed by the Associated Press. Studious readers will note that despite the somber and plodding tone of this volume as a memorial to the fallen president, it occasionally descends to morbidity - as it must in describing the awful news - as also it attempts to rise beyond rhetoric to a neutral, common-man theme still clearly biased by the political slant on balance from dreary communism toward patriotic democracy during the ongoing Cold War. Not a thorough, but close, treatment of the events of that week, readers should temper what they find here with the facts brought forth from the Warren Commission. Many will scoff at this suggestion due to our times of rearward-focused conspiracy theories. Historians will note, however, the accuracy of this chronology. As we muse on the import of JFK's legacy and failings, this book cannot help but remind us of the uselessness of violence and the emptiness of positional power to resolve the world's problems.

[Mary Popoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathtaking, absolutely breathtaking. The way humanity is infused into history, that seems like a given but so much of history is just a retelling a facts and, for brevity’s sake most likely, leaves out the feelings. But isn’t history just humanity and isn’t humanity just a collection of feelings. I wish there were more historical writings like this, the movies take it to far into fiction and the books are dry outlines. This however is the perfect merging of the two, the facts of the day as well as the raw emotion all alongside stunning photographs. Like i said, breathtaking.

[Talea · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can one say, really? The photographs tell the story and the words are just guidelines to the events. The tragedy is there in the eyes, captured, for those that lived it.

[Duncan MacDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Associated Press, in 1964, echoed the story of the Warren Commission that Oswald was the lone assassin of President Kennedy. Great photography and some wonderful historical information (for what was known in 1964).