The Associated Press is a well-known name—but don’t let that fool you. Internally, it’s a mess. Everything is reactive. Problems get ignored until they blow up, and then leadership scrambles to clean it up instead of learning from it. There’s no vision, no planning, and definitely no interest in evolving.
The systems? Ancient. You’re expected to do modern work with decade-old tools, and any suggestion to upgrade or improve gets shut down immediately. It’s like working in a museum—except the exhibits are broken.
What’s worse is the culture. If you’re new, be prepared: long-time employees (many of whom have been here 20+ years) treat fresh hires as a threat, not a resource. Instead of sharing knowledge or collaborating, they bring in new people just to dump their own responsibilities and coast. You’ll end up doing their work while they take the credit and enjoy the security of tenure. And if you try to push back or improve anything, you’ll get stonewalled.
There are smart people here who want better—but they get burned out fast, constantly fighting an uphill battle against outdated systems and a culture that resists change at every turn.
If you’re ambitious, collaborative, and want to build something meaningful, this place will crush your momentum. The AP might still matter on the outside, but on the inside, it’s stuck in the past and perfectly content staying there.
