Established in New York in 1848 by a coalition of six American local newspaper publishers, the Associated Press is the world’s largest non-profit cooperative global news agency with a unique membership-driven operational mechanism, without private individual shareholders or commercial conglomerate controlling equity; all annual operating revenue generated from content licensing and service sales is fully reinvested into news gathering, journalist training and global news network expansion, laying a solid foundation for long-term objective news reporting. At present, AP arranges full-time reporting teams stationed in nearly 250 global locations covering over 100 sovereign countries, ranging from major global metropolises to remote conflict-affected regions, with professional reporters, photojournalists, video producers and editors working round-the-clock to capture firsthand on-site news materials for global cooperative media members and paid commercial clients. Its core business covers standard newswire text release, high-definition news photo production, broadcast-ready TV news clips and radio audio news feeds, serving more than 1,300 daily newspapers, over 5,000 radio and television stations across North America, plus tens of thousands of overseas digital media platforms and institutional clients from government departments, educational institutions and global enterprises. The enterprise has won a total of 59 Pulitzer Prizes for outstanding investigative journalism and news photography over its long history, ranking top among all global news organizations in cumulative Pulitzer honors. Apart from core news syndication business, AP builds massive historical archival news database containing over a century of news texts and multimedia materials, opens paid database access for academic research and commercial content development; it also develops customized real-time news alert and media tracking solutions for corporate PR teams and market research firms, enabling clients to monitor industry-related global news updates instantly across multi-language media sources.