Disassociated Press (Associated Press nickname)
The Associated Press (AP) is a news agency founded in 1846 and headquartered in New York City. The nickname “Disassociated Press” appeared in the Bugs Bunny short film What’s Up, Doc? (1950) and has appeared infrequently since then. “Disassociated Press” has been cited in print infrequently since at least 1919.
Other Associated Press nicknames include “Associated Propaganda” (since at least November 1999), “Associated Depressed” (since at least December 2004), “Absolutely Pathetic” (since at least June 2006), “American Pravda” (since at least August 2008) and “Administration’s Press” (since at least October 2011).
Wikipedia: Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists. Many newspapers and broadcasters outside the United States are AP subscribers, paying a fee to use AP material without being contributing members of the cooperative.
As of 2005, the news collected by the AP is published and republished by more than 1,700 newspapers, in addition to more than 5,000 television and radio broadcasters. The photograph library of the AP consists of over 10 million images. The Associated Press operates 243 news bureaus, and it serves at least 120 countries, with an international staff located all over the world.
Associated Press also operates The Associated Press Radio Network, which provides newscasts twice hourly for broadcast and satellite radio and television stations. The AP Radio also offers news and public affairs features, feeds of news sound bites, and long form coverage of major events.
Associated Press
Facts
The Associated Press (“AP”) is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. On any given day, more than half the world’s population sees news from the AP. Founded in 1846, the AP today is one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering. The AP considers itself to be the backbone of the world’s information system, serving thousands of daily newspaper, radio, television, and online customers with coverage in text, photos, graphics, audio and video.
Headquartered in New York, the AP’s mission is to be the essential global news network, providing distinctive news services of the highest quality, reliability, and objectivity with reports that are accurate balanced and informed. About 3,700 employees – two-thirds of them newsgatherers – work in more than 300 locations worldwide.
Wikipedia: Disassociated Press
Disassociated Press, or The Disassociated Press, is a common spoof on The Associated Press used by satirists to depict a fictitious news organization. It has been used throughout the years in entertainment and literature in a variety of vehicles, ranging from Looney Tunes cartoons from the 1950’s through to modern internet satiric web pages and web sites using that title.
Wikipedia: What’s Up, Doc? (Bugs Bunny short)
What’s Up, Doc? is a 1949 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Robert McKimson and released by Warner Bros. Pictures in 1950 to celebrate Bugs Bunny’s 10th birthday that year, in which he recounts his life story to a reporter from “Disassociated Press”. Bugs talks about his birth, his rise to fame, the slow years, and when famous Vaudeville performer Elmer Fudd chooses him to be part of his act. Eventually the duo comes upon their classic formula of Hunter vs. Hare.
27 December 1919, La Crosse (WI) Tribune and Leader-Press, “In the Sport Mirror” by J. E. D., pg. 8, col. 4:
Even the Disassociated Press falls for it; item today refers to the Olympic games as the Olympiad. The shortage in dictionaries is something awful.
18 January 1920, La Crosse (WI) Tribune and Leader-Press, “Quips and Whips,” pg. 14, col. 3:
Last Saturday night the comical Disassociated Press asked us if we could furnish them with anything on the Markesan murder which is on the other side of the state and we felt like the fellow who was asked if he could change a hundred dollar bill.
Google News Archive
2 December 1982, Beaver County (PA) Times, “A Strange Story,” pg. A5, col. 1:
At first glance, it looked like the San Francisco Chronicle. But the new paper in town Thursday was actually the San Francisco Comicle: “The Largest Joke in Northern California.”
(...)
And then there was the “Disassociated Press” dispatch from Bismarck, N.D., which said Canada had annexed North Dakota.
The Spoof
AOL to Sell Cheap PCs to Clueless Minorities and Seniors
Friday, 13 August 2004
By Liam Logsdon, Stranded in Tampa
Miami, Florida (Disassociated Press) - Thursday, America Online made the announcement that it plans to sell outdated and low-priced PCs to low-income minority households and seniors who are on fixed incomes. The catch is they will have to agree to a year’s membership of their new Pop-Up Internet service.
Google Books
Going My Way:
Bing Crosby and American culture
By Ruth Prigozy and Walter Raubicheck
Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press
2007
Pg. 131:
Playing against the notion of Crosby’s status in the pantheon of American show business and culture, but referring to Crosby’s earlier obscurity at the beginning of his career, is Robert McKimson’s 1950 short What’s Up, Doc? In this film, Bugs Bunny is seen as a wildly successful movie star, complete with Hollywood-style sunglasses, and as he chews on carrots from a fancy cigarette case he is asked by the “Disassociated Press” to tell his life story.