AP urges news industry to stop being so ignorant
Cory Bergman November 2nd, 2007
AP CEO Tom Curley hits the nail on the head with a speech last night that urged news executives to leave their “institutional ignorance” behind and step up to the new realities of the web. “Editors need to stop pining for the old world and intensify the leading to the new one,” he said. “The first thing that has to go is the attitude…. Readers and viewers are demanding to captain their information ships. Let them.”
Absolutely. Bravo. But here’s where it gets interesting. “The portals are running off with our best stuff, and we’re afraid or unable to make or enforce deals that drive fair value,” he said. “Revenue lines in a good month are flat. In other months, they inspire the merchants of debt to imagine how they might take us over and show us how much smarter they are.” PaidContent has some analysis on Curley’s portal remarks, which are certainly interesting in light of AP’s recent deal with Google and the massive newspaper consortium that has signed with Yahoo.
Finally, while Curley urges the news industry to change, he also has a huge job on his hands to evolve AP before the internet makes his own company irrelevant. I’ve written before how the web is challenging AP’s core model, and a recent pricing structure change appears to be AP’s first efforts to adjust to the tides of change. So stay tuned…
4 Comments Add your own
1. thedetroitchannel | November 2nd, 2007 at 12:38 pm
“enforce or cut deals” with the pureplays?
why not build a better mousetrap?
there are those whose “proven track records” run longer than many readers and authors lives here that often write of the downside to these deals.
better mousetraps cost a bit more, but it’ll be worth it to control your own destiny (once again).
2. Footballchannel | November 2nd, 2007 at 7:20 pm
This is so exciting to see from him. I’ve gone from the local internet side to a notional channel, but everyone there pretends the internet doesn’t exist except to supplement and be an “entertainment” offshoot. It’s amazing.
3. Footballchannel | November 2nd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Sorry…”National” not notional.
4. Eric Schwartzman | November 4th, 2007 at 7:39 am
Good journalism is the result of a streamlined process that involves some degree of group consensus. Call it inadequate, or increasingly insolvent, but I believe it is a process that we will see rise in importance as the web becomes more and more crowded with information that confuses opinions for facts, and frontlines personal bias. I’m not saying journalism is without advocacy, but at least there are standard operating procedures.
Why doesn’t the AP – and the dailies for that matter — start crowing about the fact that they are among the last organizations that don’t leave their coverage of the news to the passions of an individual?
The value of editorial oversight is extremely undervalued in today’s media mindset.
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