Time to rethink the AP model?
Cory Bergman September 3rd, 2007
Now that Google has moved forward with the Associated Press to host the wire service’s stories — instead of linking off to newspaper sites — blogger Steve Boriss believes it’s time to rethink AP’s model. “Being a member of the AP made sense when papers were necessary middlemen for people to get their news — papers would pay the AP for electronically-transmitted stories, then reprint them and sell them for a profit to a public that had no better access to the freshest news,” he writes. “But now that the internet and Google News have essentially installed an AP News Terminal on the PC of everyone with broadband service, newspapers who are members of the AP are funding their own destruction.”
For sake of argument, imagine for a moment if your newspaper (or TV station for that matter) posts a fascinating, exclusive local story that happens to have national interest. Any good AP bureau worth its salt will pick up the story in a matter of hours and move it on the national wire. Then almost instantly, it’s hosted on Yahoo News, MSNBC, CNN and Google News, generating hundreds of thousands of ad impressions (or more) — and not a penny goes back to the originating publisher. In return, the member newspaper has access to a wide variety of national stories, but they’re already available all over the place online — which by extension reduces their value to local publishers.
Boriss also brings up the prickly issue of local broadcasters pulling local newspaper stories via the wire and posting them online (and occasionally vice-versa). Now that both mediums have expanded to the web, they’re direct competitors. And the local wire goes a long way to beef up the depth of content on a local TV site.
This is a complex issue and we’ve just scratched the surface here, but the CNN-Internet Broadcasting deal — which involves linking directly to partner sites instead of hosting their stories — offers an intriguing glimpse into a future of compensating local publishers commensurate to the value and popularity of their work. And as news continues to commoditize, original enterprise stories (which cost more to produce) will become increasingly valuable and demand a new approach to distribution.
- Last week: CNN drops Reuters, says “content ownership is king”
12 Comments Add your own
1. b.a.hokom | September 4th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Corey,
I agree, the model for print worked well, local outlets had (still have) access to national and world. As we have watched ad revenues fall lock step with circulation of print news orginizations, local and national, have had to play catch up with the broad-band network. The AP and Reuters have always had a monopoly, now they have a Mega-bite-monopoly, double dipping. However theres a saturation point wih everything, trends happen alot faster and end quicker. Jumbo Jet news applies to large audiences, but with so many outlets and links worldwide the AP and Reuters will be playing catch-up soon enough. There’s a canadian outlet called PeoplesNews, the structure they are setting up relies on all walks of life to provide content, recieving a fee and editorial, this allows for people in the city where the event takes place to go outside their front door and video record and interview on the scene long before a bureau anywhere can scoop it. As soon as the local news catches on they will reverse. Here’s the reality, every major city USA has about 3-4 local news programs, each runs about 7 hrs of news a day during the week. This model is very outdated, as if people with a computer will waste even a half hour watching a news program when they can find exactly the news they are looking for, all of it in about five minutes, local-national-worldwid on the internet. These people are tivo-ing around local news and linking for what they want to know, thats it in a nut shell. What is happening also is that AP and Rueters have put out inacurate stories because they are relying on too much out source stringers, they may not think much of it but I can tell you those mistakes travel at the speed of light across the internet.
2. Anonymous | September 4th, 2007 at 5:36 am
If a newspaper drops AP, how do they replace the content? Also, if a non-AP paper has a hot exclusive, the AP will put it on the wire as soon as they verify it. Isn’t that how it works anyway?
3. Anonymous | September 4th, 2007 at 6:56 am
I work at a TV station and look at CNN video on pathfire when I get a chance. And not part of my job description.
It seems if all of that was available on the web people could pick and choose the stories thay want. Even though most of them are local station submissions and not AP.
It could be a national site for local news all over the US.
4. invitedmedia | September 4th, 2007 at 7:41 am
a couple constructive ideas for ib/cnn:
the use of call letters to designate the location of the story is a loser. use the city name (boston, detroit, pittsburgh, whatever).
and update, update, update. the same 16 headlines occupied the “us news” section since friday (changed this am). that’s over 3 days! if nothing else, load the stories into a random sort database so it always appears you’ve been updating, updating, updating.
otherwise than that they got a good start.
5. Vanilla Cokehead | September 4th, 2007 at 8:24 am
This reminds me of what I read a while back that there was a HUGE rivalry early in the 20th Century between print and broadcast journalists over how much of the wire material could be used by outlets of each medium (print or broadcast).
At one point, radio newscasts were severely restricted as to how much AP wire material they could use, when it could be used, and had to tell people to “consult your local newspaper” for further reporting details (the Biltmore agreement in 1933).
Boy, have things changed now…
6. Mike | September 4th, 2007 at 8:40 am
If local newspapers just look at themselves as purely distribution outlets for national news, of course the Google/AP deal is threatening.
If they also see themselves as a source of local news and an effective aggregator of all news for their markets, they would still see syndicators like Reuters and AP as an essential part of their business, no?
7. Don Day | September 4th, 2007 at 10:03 am
The only media orginization with less job security than a newspaper… would be the Associated Press
8. Joe Skrote | September 4th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
It’s always amazed me that a 500-watt AM daytime radio station that makes cop calls three times a day contributes more to the news stream in original content than does mighty Google. Can we assume that AP, by establishing itself as the originator of a large chunk of Google’s news content, is making deep-pocketed Google pay plenty for those stories, enough to compensate AP members for their efforts? It may not be the AP model that changes, but the Google News model, not only through less duplication of AP stories, but with the demise of online news bureaus and “blogs” who made their livings by skillfully (and sometimes not so skillfully) rewriting AP copy. We may find out how much online news has depended on AP’s largesse. The 800-pound gorilla of U.S. news (or the “Press Trust of America”) will survive.
9. Bill Gorman | September 4th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
In San Francisco, The Chronicle uses AP content to fill what seems like 75% of their news hole. I figure they just think of it as padding around the display ads.
They could probably run Internet spam email text gibberish in the same place and achieve the same objective at less cost.
10. Anonymous | September 4th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I work for a Nexstar station which dropped AP years ago because they wouldn’t let us buy only regional news. We have enough sources with our affiliated networks (NBC, ABC, CBS) which pay to be AP members) and CNN so we didn’t need AP. AP and their handful of editorial staff needed your news content more than you need them. They graciously wanted to charge us even more every year for the opportunity to accept what they regurgitated. We are doing just fine without them thank you. Other media outlets will do fine as well once they decide it’s not worth paying AP what they want for “aggregating” news content.
11. Rick | September 4th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
About a year ago, I made a pitch to some people on what would essentially be an alternative to AP. Taking original content from a pool of blogs and independent websites, and offering it up as an AP-type feed.
There were some logistical issues–some editing for consistency across the network, for instance–but that was all doable.
What really sunk the idea ultimately was that while lots of people thought it was a good idea, no one was willing to pull the trigger and replace AP with this alternative.
I still think it’s a viable idea, though.
12. Cory | September 5th, 2007 at 8:28 am
As far as alternatives, imagine if the Yahoo newspaper consortium decided to drop AP and form their own editorial sharing service.
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