Breaking News: How the Associated Press has Covered War, Peace and Everything Else

by Richard Pyle, Larry Heinzerling, Jerry Schwartz

The reporter who filed the last dispatch before falling with Custer at his "last stand" against the Sioux.The Honolulu bureau chief who looked up from his breakfast table to see Japanese planes flying low andcalled San Francisco, managing to dictate a single paragraph before all communications to the mainlandwere cut. The Saigon bureau chief who served Coca-Cola and pound cake to three North Vietnamesesoldiers before writing the bulletin announcing the fall of Saigon. These are but a few of the gripping anddramatic stories reported first by the Associated Press in the past century and a half.In How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything Else, the Associated Press throws open its archives and invites readers into its news bureaus and out into the field to witness first hand its groundbreaking reporting on presidents, elections, wars, civil rights, trials and crimes, disasters, business, and major sports events. The book conveys, through personal accounts, archival materials, interviews, and Pulitzer-Prize-winning photographs, how the AP became the world's largest news organization and howit continues to play a vital role in providing the news to the American and international press. Breaking News makes an original and significant contribution to journalism history by shedding light on the nation's primary newswire service, one that reaches one half of the world daily and upon which virtually every serious newspaper and broadcast outlet in the nation has relied for decades.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Journalism

432 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2007

Reviews

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though by no means a complete history of the Associate Press, this hefty book aptly demonstrates the rise of the AP and how they changed the way the world gets their news.

The book is divided into thematic chapters (War, Presidents, etc.), each written by a different current or former AP staffer. Despite the multiple authors, the writing is consisent throughout, though certain stories/ideas are repeated by seerate writers.

I also appreciated that the AP photographers and stringers were well-represented and that, though the book generally extolls the greatest of the wire, also admits their failings.

A book read of not only the AP, but eyewitness accounts of important moments in history.

[Vytas R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great foreword by legendary David Halberstam. Decent, if a bit uncritical, look at AP’s colourful history.

[Jon Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting anecdotes. But felt like some stories were shortchanged based on who was in them.

[Carol Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This looks like a coffee table book, so I thought I would just thumb through it. Wrong, it had something of value on every page. This is the story (incomplete) of Associated Press who has been bringing us news since Custer's Last Stand. The book is broken down into divisions, War, Crime and Punishment, Freedom of Information Act, etc. The hayday of these noble men and women was well before the electronic age, where a telephone was a lifeline and telegrams were our emails. This was well put together and I enjoyed this.