I didn’t read the article. Seeing AP and three authors in the byline tells me all I need to know. One author for the AP will be stupid, two authors 3x as stupid, and three authors 10x as stupid. What little bit of intelligence these authors might bring to the table individually (and it is apparently just a little bit) will be completely overwhelmed by the group stupidity.
You need three so that when you get caught in an embarrassing lie they can all point to someone different and say 'it wasnt me, I think they wrote that' and nobody is to blame, time to move on.