Associated Press CEO on the Future of News | At Barron's
Summary
Business Model: The Associated Press (AP) operates as an independent, not-for-profit news organization with a primary focus on B2B licensing and subscription models, while also exploring direct-to-consumer strategies for diversification.
Revenue Diversification: AP is diversifying its revenue streams by expanding into direct-to-consumer markets, leveraging advertising, donations, and subscriptions, and increasing geographic diversification, with 40% of revenue coming from outside the U.S.
Nonpartisan News: AP emphasizes its role in providing independent, nonpartisan news globally, maintaining a consistent news report across different markets without political or ideological biases.
AI and Technology Partnerships: AP is embracing AI by establishing partnerships with tech companies like OpenAI and Google, focusing on protecting intellectual property and gaining fair value for journalistic work.
Local News Support: AP supports local news through the Associated Press Fund for Journalism, using philanthropy to bolster not-for-profit newsrooms and maintain a presence in all 50 U.S. states.
Global Coverage Challenges: AP faces challenges in covering global conflicts, such as in Gaza and Ukraine, prioritizing the safety and security of its journalists while maintaining comprehensive coverage.
Visual Content Strategy: AP has shifted towards a visual-driven content strategy, with over 75% of its output being visual, to engage digital audiences effectively.
Leadership and Mission: CEO Daisy Vera Singum highlights AP's clarity of mission and independence as key factors in its longevity and ability to adapt to changes in the news industry since its founding in 1846.
Transcript
[Music] Hello everyone and welcome to At Barrens. I'm Andy Sirwart and welcome to our guest Daisy Vera Singum who is the CEO of the AP. Daisy, nice to see you. >> Thank you very much for inviting me. >> So I want to start off by asking you to tell us about the business model of the Associated Press. How does the business of the AP work? So the AP is an independent notfor-profit news organization and we're predominantly a B-toB provider. So think about any media or information business anywhere in the world. Chances are they're a customer of the Associated Press. >> And so how does the model work for those customers then? They're subscribers. >> Yeah. So predominantly it's a licensing or subscription models. There are some variable models um to deal due to with services but it's predominantly a licensing model that has begun to change as all news organizations are thinking about how do they diversify the revenue streams that support them. So we have recently in the last few years moved into more of a direct to consumer strategy as well. It's not a big part of what we do but it is part of our diversification strategy. Yeah, I want to ask more about the diversification and the DTC, the direct to consumer part. But first, how long have you been CEO number one and number two, who owns the AP? >> Okay, so I am about to complete four years uh CEO of the Association of Press. And I think who owns the Associated Press? Well, nobody does really. I think that's what makes it truly independent. It started um in 1846 as a newspaper cooperative. It was a way of sharing costs essentially to cover the United States. And essentially that is still its structure today. But technically nobody owns the AP. We have no parent company, no corporate owner, no shareholders. >> Right. So but is it sort of like a co-op? Do your customers contribute and are they owners like a vanguard? You the mutual fund company? Is it somewhat like that? So it is a newspaper cooperative and yes a long time ago the AP used to get news from its members but that model itself has evolved as the news industry has changed and come under more pressure >> right and the company I mean you produce revenue but then the revenue is used for expenses then right >> correct so the purpose of the AP is it's essentially our job is to bring in different revenue streams that help support the fundamental news mission of the AP and being a not for profit profit. That means everything that we make gets reinvested back into the organization, >> right? And I want to so let's talk a little bit about this direct to consumer because there's such a hunger for news um nonpartisan news and sometimes people ask me where do I get that? And I say organizations like the AP in particular, you have a website, you've been building out this direct to consumer, but as a direct to consumer site, when you do that, aren't you competing against your customers? is that attention and how's that endeavor going? >> So, we really leaned into going direct to consumer three years ago, really essentially roughly at the time I took over and it was driven by the fact that in the United States we could see a gap in the kind of independent nonpartisan news. So, we're not competing with our customers because we're really trying to go after a very niche part of the audience. So, in that way, we are not competitive with our customers. I think one of the most amazing things about the AP is if you take any market news market in the world and you look at the different um organizations there they have different political leanings they have different ideological leanings and the AP provides the same news report may contain thousands of pieces of journalism every day but it provides the same news report to every single news organization every single day. We don't change it and we don't nuance it. And that really gets to the heart of how we are nonpartisan. >> I mean, is there really a market for nonpartisan news? I mean, to play the contrarian because so many people like to have the echo chamber of the cable news stations, for instance, networks, I should say, >> there's certainly a B2B market still for independent nonpartisan news, and I think we've just talked about that a little bit. But yeah, there is an there is a place in the whole news ecosystem. It may not be a large place, but there's certainly a place where people want to just have the facts. They just want to have the facts and they want to make their own decision or conclusion about what's going on. And that's the role the AP plays. >> And how big is the AP and how do you measure that? Reporters, number of bureaus, do you have growth metrics? How does that all work, Daisy? >> Okay, so the AP operates in about a 100 countries around uh the world. So we have journalists in every single country um of those 100 and we also have commercial operations in many of those countries as well. The AP is we because of our reach and distribution. Our estimate is that we actually reach half of the world's population every single day. And that takes us back to our mission which is to inform the world and ensure that independent and nonpartisan news is getting into the overall ecosystem. From a business perspective, our job is to ensure that we are able to manage the AP from a financial perspective and that it that therefore we are able to invest in the journalism and in all of the other things that go around running an news organization, cyber security product and tech development, you know, the infrastructure that you need. So that is how we judge the success of the AP its ability to remain independent in that sense. And so let's talk more about diversification beyond the direct to consumer. Are there products geography? What are you thinking about? >> So I think diversification comes from customer groups, from business models and also from geographic expansion as well. So today about 40% of our overall revenue comes from outside of the United States. Um, so geographic diversification has certainly been an important part of how we've diversified. Our customer groups have changed. So when we were founded back in 1846, we were essentially a newspaper organization. That's how we stayed for many years. Today, as we all understand, the news industry and newspapers in particular have been under tremendous pressure. So we've had to diversify our business over the last 10 years or so. So broadcasters, corporations, technology platforms, they would all be big customer groups of the AP. If I were to look forward over the next few years, US newspapers would actually be very a very small contributing part of the AP with some of these other customer segments now being bigger contributors like broadcasters and tech platforms. So that's another way in which we've diversified. The final way is the business model itself. So, we talked a little bit about the fact that we're predominantly a B2B uh provider, but our move to being direct to consumer hasn't just been about playing that nonpartisan role in the overall news ecosystem. It's also been about bring being able to tap into advertising and donations and subscriptions as part of our business model. We've also um set out the APFJ which is a philanthropic part of the AP because we are a public service organization in part and so we lean into philanthropy a little bit to help support those part of parts of the news ecosystem where revenue can't do that and I would say local and state newspapers are a really good example of where we're using philanthropy to help support the local news industry in the US. And a quick followup on the consumer piece again. You have uh is it a subscription or is it a free website with advertising? >> It's a free website with advertising, but we are leaning into the donation model which is you like what the AP do, you believe in the work that we do, then you make a donation to help support the public service mission that we that we continue. a big threat or maybe a big opportunity of course in our business is AI and I know you have partnerships with chat GPT and with Google >> at and talk to me about that and and how are you harnessing this power. Okay. So I think very early on we established two principles and I think that's kind of guided us through um the last couple of years and our principles were AP's intellectual property must be protected and we must maintain or gain a fair value for what our journalists do every single day. And so those two principles have really guided I guess the commercial deals that we have done. Um I don't I think many people will be aware that we did the first deal with open AI. Um we and we have done similar deals with other tech platforms where those two principles are respected and that's been about our view that like it or not AI is going to fundamentally change the way in which we work um the way in which news is created and the way in which audiences engage with news and you have to embrace that and put guard rails against it because there are both challenges and huge opportunities to this technology. ology. So you have to follow the opportunities but also ensure that guard rails are put around what you're doing. So a good example of a guard rail is we update our standards on a fairly regular basis around journalist use of the technology itself. So that's a good example of how you can put a guardrail against um um around AI but also still really be aggressively moving forward with it. and you're confident in your licensing deal with these new forms um are not going to threaten your future and are fair to you because other news organizations don't seem to share that opinion. >> I think the advantage that we had is we're a licensing business. I mean we talked about that right that is what we have been doing for hundreds of years. So we had a licensing framework established already against which we could measure value. So that it's that background, that history, that ability to evaluate against other things that has given us the confidence to move forward. >> Interesting. And you mentioned local news in the United States and everyone knows that's been a problem. It's shrinking. What are you doing? You're talking about raising money in a philanth in philanthropic way, but how else are you looking to support local news in the United States, Daisy? So we are I think the only organization that still maintains a 50-st state footprint. That means we cover news from all of the 50 states including many of the state capitals. But of course as local news has come under more and more pressure and they are not necessarily some of our biggest customers anymore, we've had to think of new ways to help support that local news infrastructure. So, one of the things that we did last year was we stood up a sister organization called the Associated Press Fund for Journalism. And what they're trying to do is fund raise to help better support the local news infrastructure. So essentially we fund raise and then we help support uh lots of not not for-p profofit newsrooms that have arisen that have kind of stepped in and filled some of those news deserts by using that money to provide AP content and services to help these organizations become more vibrant parts of their local community. >> Shifting gears a little bit uh into current events, how difficult is it for the AP to cover the war in Gaza and what's that like? It's extremely difficult. We are one of the few news organizations that still have staff in Gaza. We've been covering uh this war since its inception by our team who were based there. I will be very honest, our biggest concern every single day is the safety and security of our staff. That is our overriding priority and that is not easy um every day and is getting harder and harder. Um they have done tremendous work under extremely difficult circumstances and it is really important the work that they do because they are bearing witness to what is going on in Gaza at a time where it's very difficult as you know to get other journalists to be able to cover what's happening >> and you have people in Ukraine as well. >> We do have people in Ukraine. We have a fairly strong team in Ukraine and again very complex to cover. Um security of staff is probably always our biggest um our biggest worry. Um and you know has a huge team of people working on it daily to ensure not just the coverage but our staff are kept safe as they cover >> and things can flare up at any time. I mean Nepal recently has has erupted into violence and you have to cover that as well. >> And we have to cover that. Yeah. So, it's been an unusual time. I don't think the AP has seen for a fairly long time as like the world, um, two ground wars that they're trying to cover with a a lot of unrest in many other places. And, you know, keeping people safe. Um, for me as the CEO of the organization, that is always my number one priority. >> Another thorny issue for you, Daisy, is litigation with the White House here in the United States. What's the latest on that right now? So at the moment uh the case is due to be heard on its merits. Um so uh the um the district court actually ruled in our favor and the white house are appealing against that and the case is due to be heard on its merits towards the end end of the year. So we're involved in that process. In terms of how is it impacting us in terms of our coverage daytoday, I I would say that we're able to cover the president of the United States in the way that we were before. We have access to all of the polls on a daily basis. So from a coverage perspective, it hasn't had as much impact um probably as people would perceive it to have had. >> Right. I want to ask you about the future of the news business. There's some people who suggest that it's a winner take all type of environment where big organizations like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal who shares a parent with Barons, uh maybe the Washington Post sort of dominate the landscape and smaller players maybe including even yourself, you're a different business model of course, suffer or maybe you're still a participant. How do you see the future of the business? I think it's look, I'm going to be honest. I think it's really difficult to predict the future at the moment. I I think being able to see out a couple of years is almost impossible sometimes. Then you layer in the impact of AI and that makes the the the the ability to look forward even harder at times. I think the AP will always have a role to play because of the fact that we are a news agency that we are a supplier to the broader news in industry and information system. So I see the AP as always having a role to play. Now whether that will be different, whether services will be more important than content or as important. I think the product portfolio and set will probably change but I think the role that we play is still as important today as it has ever been. >> Daisy, I'm old enough to remember when there was a Coke Pepsi rivalry in your business, the AP and UPI, the United Press International, which is a shadow of itself today. How is it that the AP has survived and UPI didn't? Do you know what happened that was different? I mean it's before your time. >> It was a bit before my time to be honest. >> So I guess the question is what what do I think has helped the AP survive? I think it is been it's clarity on mission and purpose. I think we are very focused on the role that we play and our mission and our purpose and I think that does help. I think also being completely independent, understanding if you like that we have to make money in order to support that mission. It keeps us moving and keeps us nimble. We don't have anyone else to rely on. And I think that's the other thing that has helped us to survive is that independence in a sense keeps us having to evolve ourselves as an organization. Look, I'll be very honest with you, being part of the news industry is not an easy place to be today. Um, but you know, we have to keep reinventing ourselves and I guess I take comfort if there is some comfort to be taken and the fact that we've been around since 1846 and we've survived many changes in the ecosystem and we've had and we've adapted and that's what we're having to do again. >> There's all kinds of cool facets to the AP in terms of products that maybe people don't even realize. For instance, all the incredible photography, news photography, which is such a strength of the AP, all these pictures that you see out there, so many of them are from the AP. The other thing is the sports polls, the college football or is it, you know, the college football top 25, >> right? The top 25. I mean, people rely on these things. And how do you oversee all these things and, you know, prioritize what's important in terms of deploying capital and resources? I mean it's very much driven like any business by looking at what's important from a business perspective, from an audience perspective, what engages audiences. So we use the same principles um as any other business in determining where do we invest, how do we invest, which which businesses do we grow. One of the things I think I'm the most proud of of our team is that in the last few years we have taken the AP's total output to being over 75% visual. Um and that for me plays to the fact of the fact that today audiences digital audience engage with visual content and that's been a really key and component part of our strategy which is to make the AP a very visually driven organization. So you picked up on that the tremendous photo journalism that we do you know pulitza prizewinning uh journalism um as we bear witness to what happens around the world and I think being a very visually driven business is really important as we move forward >> and I assume you're on all the social media platforms are you on Tik Tok and >> we are we have presence on all of the social media platforms as we're not a very heavy direct to consumer business that is not a key component part, but it's an important part of our growth in in the consumer space. >> And final question, Daisy, a little bit about you. How did you get to this place? I know you're from England originally, but I hear that you discovered that there's football here as opposed to football back in the United Kingdom. So, that's great acclamation there. >> I'm having to learn to call it soccer, >> right? Soccer versus Exactly. So, how did you become the head the CEO of the AP? So, I have spent my entire career in journalism. Um, after after completing my law degree, um, I started at the Financial Times. I spent a little bit of time with Lexus Nexus. Went out of the news industry very early on. That wasn't really where I was the happiest. Um, and I'm in the position today that I've been I've been at the AP for quite a long time, over 15 years, and I've built my way up uh through the AP. I've run a lot of its international operations. So I I know how the organization uh works. So when I was offered the opportunity from the board to come and take over as CEO, I mean it's an amazing job. Who wouldn't want to do this job? >> Daisy Vera Singum, CEO of the AP. Thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you. >> This is at Barrens. I'm Andy Sir. We'll catch you next time.
Associated Press CEO on the Future of News | At Barron's
Summary
Transcript
[Music] Hello everyone and welcome to At Barrens. I'm Andy Sirwart and welcome to our guest Daisy Vera Singum who is the CEO of the AP. Daisy, nice to see you. >> Thank you very much for inviting me. >> So I want to start off by asking you to tell us about the business model of the Associated Press. How does the business of the AP work? So the AP is an independent notfor-profit news organization and we're predominantly a B-toB provider. So think about any media or information business anywhere in the world. Chances are they're a customer of the Associated Press. >> And so how does the model work for those customers then? They're subscribers. >> Yeah. So predominantly it's a licensing or subscription models. There are some variable models um to deal due to with services but it's predominantly a licensing model that has begun to change as all news organizations are thinking about how do they diversify the revenue streams that support them. So we have recently in the last few years moved into more of a direct to consumer strategy as well. It's not a big part of what we do but it is part of our diversification strategy. Yeah, I want to ask more about the diversification and the DTC, the direct to consumer part. But first, how long have you been CEO number one and number two, who owns the AP? >> Okay, so I am about to complete four years uh CEO of the Association of Press. And I think who owns the Associated Press? Well, nobody does really. I think that's what makes it truly independent. It started um in 1846 as a newspaper cooperative. It was a way of sharing costs essentially to cover the United States. And essentially that is still its structure today. But technically nobody owns the AP. We have no parent company, no corporate owner, no shareholders. >> Right. So but is it sort of like a co-op? Do your customers contribute and are they owners like a vanguard? You the mutual fund company? Is it somewhat like that? So it is a newspaper cooperative and yes a long time ago the AP used to get news from its members but that model itself has evolved as the news industry has changed and come under more pressure >> right and the company I mean you produce revenue but then the revenue is used for expenses then right >> correct so the purpose of the AP is it's essentially our job is to bring in different revenue streams that help support the fundamental news mission of the AP and being a not for profit profit. That means everything that we make gets reinvested back into the organization, >> right? And I want to so let's talk a little bit about this direct to consumer because there's such a hunger for news um nonpartisan news and sometimes people ask me where do I get that? And I say organizations like the AP in particular, you have a website, you've been building out this direct to consumer, but as a direct to consumer site, when you do that, aren't you competing against your customers? is that attention and how's that endeavor going? >> So, we really leaned into going direct to consumer three years ago, really essentially roughly at the time I took over and it was driven by the fact that in the United States we could see a gap in the kind of independent nonpartisan news. So, we're not competing with our customers because we're really trying to go after a very niche part of the audience. So, in that way, we are not competitive with our customers. I think one of the most amazing things about the AP is if you take any market news market in the world and you look at the different um organizations there they have different political leanings they have different ideological leanings and the AP provides the same news report may contain thousands of pieces of journalism every day but it provides the same news report to every single news organization every single day. We don't change it and we don't nuance it. And that really gets to the heart of how we are nonpartisan. >> I mean, is there really a market for nonpartisan news? I mean, to play the contrarian because so many people like to have the echo chamber of the cable news stations, for instance, networks, I should say, >> there's certainly a B2B market still for independent nonpartisan news, and I think we've just talked about that a little bit. But yeah, there is an there is a place in the whole news ecosystem. It may not be a large place, but there's certainly a place where people want to just have the facts. They just want to have the facts and they want to make their own decision or conclusion about what's going on. And that's the role the AP plays. >> And how big is the AP and how do you measure that? Reporters, number of bureaus, do you have growth metrics? How does that all work, Daisy? >> Okay, so the AP operates in about a 100 countries around uh the world. So we have journalists in every single country um of those 100 and we also have commercial operations in many of those countries as well. The AP is we because of our reach and distribution. Our estimate is that we actually reach half of the world's population every single day. And that takes us back to our mission which is to inform the world and ensure that independent and nonpartisan news is getting into the overall ecosystem. From a business perspective, our job is to ensure that we are able to manage the AP from a financial perspective and that it that therefore we are able to invest in the journalism and in all of the other things that go around running an news organization, cyber security product and tech development, you know, the infrastructure that you need. So that is how we judge the success of the AP its ability to remain independent in that sense. And so let's talk more about diversification beyond the direct to consumer. Are there products geography? What are you thinking about? >> So I think diversification comes from customer groups, from business models and also from geographic expansion as well. So today about 40% of our overall revenue comes from outside of the United States. Um, so geographic diversification has certainly been an important part of how we've diversified. Our customer groups have changed. So when we were founded back in 1846, we were essentially a newspaper organization. That's how we stayed for many years. Today, as we all understand, the news industry and newspapers in particular have been under tremendous pressure. So we've had to diversify our business over the last 10 years or so. So broadcasters, corporations, technology platforms, they would all be big customer groups of the AP. If I were to look forward over the next few years, US newspapers would actually be very a very small contributing part of the AP with some of these other customer segments now being bigger contributors like broadcasters and tech platforms. So that's another way in which we've diversified. The final way is the business model itself. So, we talked a little bit about the fact that we're predominantly a B2B uh provider, but our move to being direct to consumer hasn't just been about playing that nonpartisan role in the overall news ecosystem. It's also been about bring being able to tap into advertising and donations and subscriptions as part of our business model. We've also um set out the APFJ which is a philanthropic part of the AP because we are a public service organization in part and so we lean into philanthropy a little bit to help support those part of parts of the news ecosystem where revenue can't do that and I would say local and state newspapers are a really good example of where we're using philanthropy to help support the local news industry in the US. And a quick followup on the consumer piece again. You have uh is it a subscription or is it a free website with advertising? >> It's a free website with advertising, but we are leaning into the donation model which is you like what the AP do, you believe in the work that we do, then you make a donation to help support the public service mission that we that we continue. a big threat or maybe a big opportunity of course in our business is AI and I know you have partnerships with chat GPT and with Google >> at and talk to me about that and and how are you harnessing this power. Okay. So I think very early on we established two principles and I think that's kind of guided us through um the last couple of years and our principles were AP's intellectual property must be protected and we must maintain or gain a fair value for what our journalists do every single day. And so those two principles have really guided I guess the commercial deals that we have done. Um I don't I think many people will be aware that we did the first deal with open AI. Um we and we have done similar deals with other tech platforms where those two principles are respected and that's been about our view that like it or not AI is going to fundamentally change the way in which we work um the way in which news is created and the way in which audiences engage with news and you have to embrace that and put guard rails against it because there are both challenges and huge opportunities to this technology. ology. So you have to follow the opportunities but also ensure that guard rails are put around what you're doing. So a good example of a guard rail is we update our standards on a fairly regular basis around journalist use of the technology itself. So that's a good example of how you can put a guardrail against um um around AI but also still really be aggressively moving forward with it. and you're confident in your licensing deal with these new forms um are not going to threaten your future and are fair to you because other news organizations don't seem to share that opinion. >> I think the advantage that we had is we're a licensing business. I mean we talked about that right that is what we have been doing for hundreds of years. So we had a licensing framework established already against which we could measure value. So that it's that background, that history, that ability to evaluate against other things that has given us the confidence to move forward. >> Interesting. And you mentioned local news in the United States and everyone knows that's been a problem. It's shrinking. What are you doing? You're talking about raising money in a philanth in philanthropic way, but how else are you looking to support local news in the United States, Daisy? So we are I think the only organization that still maintains a 50-st state footprint. That means we cover news from all of the 50 states including many of the state capitals. But of course as local news has come under more and more pressure and they are not necessarily some of our biggest customers anymore, we've had to think of new ways to help support that local news infrastructure. So, one of the things that we did last year was we stood up a sister organization called the Associated Press Fund for Journalism. And what they're trying to do is fund raise to help better support the local news infrastructure. So essentially we fund raise and then we help support uh lots of not not for-p profofit newsrooms that have arisen that have kind of stepped in and filled some of those news deserts by using that money to provide AP content and services to help these organizations become more vibrant parts of their local community. >> Shifting gears a little bit uh into current events, how difficult is it for the AP to cover the war in Gaza and what's that like? It's extremely difficult. We are one of the few news organizations that still have staff in Gaza. We've been covering uh this war since its inception by our team who were based there. I will be very honest, our biggest concern every single day is the safety and security of our staff. That is our overriding priority and that is not easy um every day and is getting harder and harder. Um they have done tremendous work under extremely difficult circumstances and it is really important the work that they do because they are bearing witness to what is going on in Gaza at a time where it's very difficult as you know to get other journalists to be able to cover what's happening >> and you have people in Ukraine as well. >> We do have people in Ukraine. We have a fairly strong team in Ukraine and again very complex to cover. Um security of staff is probably always our biggest um our biggest worry. Um and you know has a huge team of people working on it daily to ensure not just the coverage but our staff are kept safe as they cover >> and things can flare up at any time. I mean Nepal recently has has erupted into violence and you have to cover that as well. >> And we have to cover that. Yeah. So, it's been an unusual time. I don't think the AP has seen for a fairly long time as like the world, um, two ground wars that they're trying to cover with a a lot of unrest in many other places. And, you know, keeping people safe. Um, for me as the CEO of the organization, that is always my number one priority. >> Another thorny issue for you, Daisy, is litigation with the White House here in the United States. What's the latest on that right now? So at the moment uh the case is due to be heard on its merits. Um so uh the um the district court actually ruled in our favor and the white house are appealing against that and the case is due to be heard on its merits towards the end end of the year. So we're involved in that process. In terms of how is it impacting us in terms of our coverage daytoday, I I would say that we're able to cover the president of the United States in the way that we were before. We have access to all of the polls on a daily basis. So from a coverage perspective, it hasn't had as much impact um probably as people would perceive it to have had. >> Right. I want to ask you about the future of the news business. There's some people who suggest that it's a winner take all type of environment where big organizations like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal who shares a parent with Barons, uh maybe the Washington Post sort of dominate the landscape and smaller players maybe including even yourself, you're a different business model of course, suffer or maybe you're still a participant. How do you see the future of the business? I think it's look, I'm going to be honest. I think it's really difficult to predict the future at the moment. I I think being able to see out a couple of years is almost impossible sometimes. Then you layer in the impact of AI and that makes the the the the ability to look forward even harder at times. I think the AP will always have a role to play because of the fact that we are a news agency that we are a supplier to the broader news in industry and information system. So I see the AP as always having a role to play. Now whether that will be different, whether services will be more important than content or as important. I think the product portfolio and set will probably change but I think the role that we play is still as important today as it has ever been. >> Daisy, I'm old enough to remember when there was a Coke Pepsi rivalry in your business, the AP and UPI, the United Press International, which is a shadow of itself today. How is it that the AP has survived and UPI didn't? Do you know what happened that was different? I mean it's before your time. >> It was a bit before my time to be honest. >> So I guess the question is what what do I think has helped the AP survive? I think it is been it's clarity on mission and purpose. I think we are very focused on the role that we play and our mission and our purpose and I think that does help. I think also being completely independent, understanding if you like that we have to make money in order to support that mission. It keeps us moving and keeps us nimble. We don't have anyone else to rely on. And I think that's the other thing that has helped us to survive is that independence in a sense keeps us having to evolve ourselves as an organization. Look, I'll be very honest with you, being part of the news industry is not an easy place to be today. Um, but you know, we have to keep reinventing ourselves and I guess I take comfort if there is some comfort to be taken and the fact that we've been around since 1846 and we've survived many changes in the ecosystem and we've had and we've adapted and that's what we're having to do again. >> There's all kinds of cool facets to the AP in terms of products that maybe people don't even realize. For instance, all the incredible photography, news photography, which is such a strength of the AP, all these pictures that you see out there, so many of them are from the AP. The other thing is the sports polls, the college football or is it, you know, the college football top 25, >> right? The top 25. I mean, people rely on these things. And how do you oversee all these things and, you know, prioritize what's important in terms of deploying capital and resources? I mean it's very much driven like any business by looking at what's important from a business perspective, from an audience perspective, what engages audiences. So we use the same principles um as any other business in determining where do we invest, how do we invest, which which businesses do we grow. One of the things I think I'm the most proud of of our team is that in the last few years we have taken the AP's total output to being over 75% visual. Um and that for me plays to the fact of the fact that today audiences digital audience engage with visual content and that's been a really key and component part of our strategy which is to make the AP a very visually driven organization. So you picked up on that the tremendous photo journalism that we do you know pulitza prizewinning uh journalism um as we bear witness to what happens around the world and I think being a very visually driven business is really important as we move forward >> and I assume you're on all the social media platforms are you on Tik Tok and >> we are we have presence on all of the social media platforms as we're not a very heavy direct to consumer business that is not a key component part, but it's an important part of our growth in in the consumer space. >> And final question, Daisy, a little bit about you. How did you get to this place? I know you're from England originally, but I hear that you discovered that there's football here as opposed to football back in the United Kingdom. So, that's great acclamation there. >> I'm having to learn to call it soccer, >> right? Soccer versus Exactly. So, how did you become the head the CEO of the AP? So, I have spent my entire career in journalism. Um, after after completing my law degree, um, I started at the Financial Times. I spent a little bit of time with Lexus Nexus. Went out of the news industry very early on. That wasn't really where I was the happiest. Um, and I'm in the position today that I've been I've been at the AP for quite a long time, over 15 years, and I've built my way up uh through the AP. I've run a lot of its international operations. So I I know how the organization uh works. So when I was offered the opportunity from the board to come and take over as CEO, I mean it's an amazing job. Who wouldn't want to do this job? >> Daisy Vera Singum, CEO of the AP. Thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you. >> This is at Barrens. I'm Andy Sir. We'll catch you next time.