Axios media correspondent Sara Fischer speaks to Associated Press president and CEO Daisy Veerasingham at Axios’ inaugural Media Trends Live Summit 2025.
Questions asked in this interview
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6:49And that's why we have to protect our intellectual property and we have to achieve a fair value for that. We're a licensing business, right?
Another news organization that is in a legal battle with the White House. We have the CEO and president of the AP, Daisy Vera Singum, who will be joining us on stage.
The last time Daisy and I saw each other, we were talking about AI, and it was fun to be able to have a conversation about innovation and not be bogged down in some of the crazy legal things happening. But I do want to start there because obviously there's been a lot of news stories in the past week about what's been happening with Donald Trump and lawsuits, and your situation is different. Donald Trump has waged five lawsuits against media companies in the past two years. What happened with the AP? The White House barred AP reporters from events. The AP sued the White House, which is different, and now you're in an appeal. My question for you: where does that case stand and what do you expect to happen? Do you think this goes ultimately all the way to the Supreme Court? When do you think we're going to hear this?
Okay, so we actually stood on a principle which is a fundamental right protected under the American Constitution. You'll realize from my accent that I'm actually not American. I'm British. So it always seems a bit strange that I'm talking about this. And that is the right to report freely without retaliation. So yes, you're correct. It's currently being appealed. The decision is being currently appealed by the White House. That's still playing out and is in process. In terms of where does this go over the long term, I think it's really difficult to tell at this moment in time because it depends what happens with this appeal process at the moment, and we're very much focused on the outcome of that for the time being.
Elon Musk, other Trump allies have gone after the AP for its style guide. And I think, you know, that was what caused this rift in the first place. And I think one of the reasons that they target the AP is because the AP licenses so much content to newsrooms all around the world. It's one of the largest global news wires. Do you have concerns that even though this lawsuit was waged by you, that the Trump administration has you next on the block, that they're now going to go back and try to sue you for some sort of, you know, whatever punitive measure it might be?
Look, I think we're all navigating very uncertain times, probably uncharted territory for most media organizations. The style book — look, the style book is something we produce. It's a way we're transparent. You're right. We serve thousands of customers around the world. We're a global organization. We operate in over a hundred countries. That's the perspective we have to take. And the style book is about how we are transparent with our own customers. It's guidance for everybody else. They're free to follow it or not. And I think that's something that gets missed sometimes in the discussion. It's our guidance to our journalists. And you can follow it or you can choose not to.
Yes. In talking about that very global reach, one of the things that makes the AP unique is that it actually has the resources to put journalists on the ground in places like Gaza, in places like Russia, places that are hard to reach. In terms of Gaza, recently the IDF bombed areas in Gaza in which freelance media workers that worked for the AP were killed. The AP and Reuters sent a very strongly worded letter to Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials condemning it and asking for information about an investigation into what happened. Have you heard from them? And if you haven't, what's your next move?
So, first of all, I'd just like to say that losing a member of our team is very tough. It's tough on the organization and it's particularly tough on the team that works closely every single day on the ground, and they're working in very difficult circumstances. As many of you know, there are not many media organizations able to report out of Gaza at the moment. So yes, with Reuters, we did ask for an explanation as to what has happened. We are still in discussions, let's put it that way. We have not had a definitive answer for that. But I also want to be very clear. This is really important to us and we will continue to push for that.
