The publishers that use the AP tend to be deathly afraid of anything that might lead users away from their sites, so I'm not surprised to see that they haven't

The publishers that use the AP tend to be deathly afraid of anything that might lead users away from their sites, so I'm not surprised to see that they haven't used hyperlinks until now. That said, I have no idea why they chose bit.ly, although part of me suspects this is some sort of covert advertising campaign that bit.ly is paying the AP for.