The Associated Press confirmed it was laying off an unspecified number of U.S.-based journalists on Friday, part of a restructuring announced last month that would turn the news organization's focus away from print journalism and toward visual journalism and other revenue sources. “This is part of the restructuring we announced last month to align our operations with what our top customers need from us today,” an AP spokesman, Patrick Maks, said in an email. He declined to give numbers or to say whether the layoffs would conclude on Friday. “It’s never easy to part ways with valued colleagues — we are appreciative of their contributions to the AP and wish them all the best,” wrote Maks, the news outlet's director of media relations and corporate communications. The layoffs, which had been expected, come about a month after AP, one of the world’s oldest and most influential news organizations, offered buyouts to more than 120 journalists based in the United States.…