Australian Associated Press is battling to stay open after more than 80 years of providing editorial content.
The Australian Associated Press will shut down its news wire service on June 26 in an historic development for Australia’s media landscape after its two biggest clients and shareholders decided to pull out.
Major shareholders Nine Entertainment Co and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp will sever longstanding partnerships with AAP in an effort to cut costs amid a challenging media advertising landscape.
Nine is also the owner of Stuff and various Australian newspapers including The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. It is believed at least 180 jobs will be lost in the closure.
AAP chief executive Bruce Davidson said it had been an “extremely difficult decision” to shut AAP including the newswire service and sub-editing service Pagemasters but signalled some of the at least 180 job losses would be redeployed to News Corp and Nine.
“The closure of AAP ends an era in Australian journalism and it is a decision our shareholders have made with heavy hearts,” Davidson said. “In particular, News Corp and Nine will be making additional investment in their own news teams to replace some of the content they currently.
the Guardian and Daily Mail, rely on AAP for much of its breaking news content and it is understood they were not informed of the changes ahead of time.