Getting the facts right has been core to AP’s mission since our founding in 1846. We’ve been fact-checking public figures with our traditional AP Fact Checks for decades and with the proliferation of false news online, we established the News Verification desk to address false and misleading information on social media, both text and visual.
As the 2024 U.S. election approaches, we are expanding our misinformation and explanatory work to focus on democracy. This endeavor will heighten AP’s reach throughout the U.S., with the goal of helping an increasingly polarized public better understand their government.
The war in Ukraine also remains a focus. Our efforts to tell the story on the ground – and counter Russian propaganda – led to numerous national and international awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes in 2023: the Public Service award for coverage of a Russian attack on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, and breaking news photography for visual coverage that captured the horrors of the war.
