Posted April 17, 2008

(Note: This story is from the Spring 2008 issue of APME News, due to reach member newsrooms soon. Read related story on AP member unrest here.

By DAVID LEDFORD
APME President
Vice President and Executive Editor, The News Journal, Wilmington, Del.

David
Ledford

Newspaper editors have been haggling over the coverage and price of services delivered by The Associated Press since the news cooperative was created in 1846. This latest round of unrest is nothing new, senior editors and officials at AP say.

But I can't help wonder whether increased competition in a digital world – colliding with an exceptionally tough financial climate for newspapers – doesn't make this era different. Will this chorus of discontent gather enough strength to undermine the cooperative built on the bedrock of newspapers?

Fresh from road trips where she has met with newspaper editors, AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll says with confidence that the cooperative will weather this storm just as it has past periods of turbulence. While Carroll does not discount the intensity of unrest among some editors, she insists that it is not widespread.

It does, however, reach to Alaska, where Pat Dougherty, executive editor and senior vice president of the Anchorage Daily News, contends AP's state coverage has declined seriously and he's upset about paying the same for less. Dougherty wonders how he could publish a credible print and digital report without AP.

"I'd do fine on national and international coverage," says Dougherty. "The only thing I can't fairly easily replace is sports. And that's only a matter of time. I'm probably in a minority of editors who feel as strongly as I do, but my perception is that that group is growing steadily."

Howard Weaver, vice president of news for McClatchy Co., the nation's third-largest newspaper company and owner of the Anchorage Daily News, says if the industry were being built anew today, it would need an institution like The AP to keep it strong and bind it together.

But as the financial pressure mounts, Weaver finds himself having empathy for editors demanding a rate cut, noting that shrinking resources make it difficult to keep the print newspaper strong while competing with broadcasters in a 24/7 environment.

"Almost every editor who looks at his or her budget sees staff compensation as the largest item, the next big number being the AP (assessment). If you can't touch that one, what do you do?" asks Weaver, whose boss, McClatchy Chairman, President and CEO Gary Pruitt, is vice chairman of AP's governing board.

Editors like Dougherty are carping about state coverage because their staffs are shrinking and they must depend on the AP more, Weaver says. Other McClatchy editors are concerned about competitors, particularly broadcast, using their material without giving proper credit.

"I think the AP does understand that there is a widespread dissatisfaction," Weaver says.

Carroll is optimistic that an ongoing restructuring plan to create regional editing hubs will free up duplicative positions in New York and allow The AP to put more reporters on the streets nationwide.

When completed in 2009, Carroll says, those moves will go a long way towards addressing member concerns about state coverage.

She also believes cries for price cuts will quiet by summer's end. By then, AP executives will have explained to editors nationwide the benefits of the cooperative's new "Member Choice" services plan that affords more flexibility in purchasing services.

Under the new plan, approximately 90 percent of all AP text services will be sold as breaking news under a general assessment, with entertainment enterprise, lifestyle enterprise, sports enterprise, business enterprise and news enterprise being sold in separate "verticals."

Once editors understand the choices, they'll make decisions and move forward, Carroll says she believes. The winter of discontent will be a fading memory.

But Boston Globe Editor Martin Baron and other editors pushing for a rate cut say they have no intention of abandoning their case.

Newspapers are the owners of the cooperative, Baron points out, and should therefore derive some benefit when they need help the most. He does not sound optimistic, however.

Since AP announced Member Choice late last year, Baron says, "they've traveled to newspapers around the country and they're having a hard time explaining it. We've never been surveyed. They can't even tell us in practical terms what kinds of stories fall into what categories. It's not at all clear what the savings will be."

Down the coast in New Jersey, Asbury Park Press Editor Skip Hidlay, a former AP reporter and news editor, says it's wrong-headed for editors to turn angst about the incessant string of newsroom job cuts and buyouts on the AP. Simply put, he says, newspapers need the AP to serve up a credible report.

I believe that's especially true in print. In a hyper-competitive world where major stories can be found in taxi cabs, grocery store checkout lines and on thousands of Internet portals, we need discovery, not bland reaffirmation. AP's enterprise has gotten stronger in recent years, and that has helped keep us relevant – especially with Baby Boomers, who've remained loyal in hard times.

Yet, as good as the national and international AP report is, it's a separate issue for editors fighting hard in their communities.

Vicki Gowler, editor and vice president of the Idaho Statesman in Boise, says she's facing the same issues as Ohio editors Ron Royhab of Toledo and Ben Marrison of Columbus: competitors are taking her institution's content without giving it proper credit.

Newspapers send electronic versions of stories prepared for print to The AP to be shared with members. AP bureaus also mine newspapers' Web sites and post stories from those sites on both print and broadcast wires.

AP generally credits the originating content provider, be it a broadcaster or newspaper. But newspapers nationwide have long complained that radio and TV stations rarely give their work credit, and often use labels on their Web sites or on-air language to suggest that the broadcasters themselves created the content.

Knowing that most radio and TV stations have small news staffs, newspaper editors hearing and seeing broadcasters' updates that mirror the work produced by scores of journalists in their rooms feel like they've been ripped off.

Gowler says if a broadcast competitor breaks a story in her market, she insists that her staff credit the station in the Statesman's own story. To protect her brand, she wants the same respect – all day, every day.

And if she doesn't get it, she wants AP to enforce its charter allowing one member to exclude all others in a 30-mile radius. AP just granted that courtesy to the Toledo Blade and, late last year, it made the same accommodation to the Arizona Daily Star.

"It's becoming more strident because newspapers are focusing more on breaking news online," Gowler says. "Newspapers are the largest local reporting force, yet we end up giving more than we give back. And if TV breaks a story it's not being picked up (by AP) and given back to us in real time."

AP's Carroll says this is an old fight that is ultimately settled with the help of state bureau chiefs. At APME's winter board meeting in New York, AP President and CEO Tom Curley told newspaper editors it would be better to make alliances with broadcasters than to "go to war."

Fair point. But as president of the Associated Press Managing Editors, I've talked to enough editors nationwide to know that journalism in the digital age is bringing new life to old battles, and that a sizeable number of editors – regardless of issue – feel AP is not taking their concerns as seriously as they would like.

Gowler recognizes that the locals-out notion undermines the spirit of the cooperative, which she believes in. She wants AP to help her find a solution.

"We've got to somehow fix this problem," Growler says.

"We've simply got to give correct branding to the originator of the content."

What, specifically, does she want? Here's an example: "Radio and TV should say, "I'm reading the Idaho Statesman right now (in either print or online) and here's two stories you should know about."

When editors in Florida complained several years ago that AP wasn't moving enough copy from individual papers AP helped set up a system for sharing stories. Florida editors can now pick up any story colleagues want to share, and they always give proper credit. Readers are enriched.

The idea came from Jim Gouvellis, who at the time was executive editor and vice president of News for Sun Newspapers in Port Charlotte and active in the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors (FSNE). Today he's publisher of the Lake Wales News and vice president of the company's Polk County operations, and sees the cooperation as a huge success.

"I believe AP's involvement will actually make the goal of news sharing achievable and bring the newspaper cooperative concept close to what it was when the AP was formed," Gouvellis says.

Gowler says editors in Idaho are talking about creating a similar system. In April, AP set up sharing sites in five more states – Iowa, Washington, Ohio, Colorado and Montana – and said it planned to offer similar means of cooperation in all 50 states later this year.

During this winter of discontent, AP executives have frequently said that newspaper fees now account for less than 30 percent of AP's total revenues. Some editors are wounded by that statement, suspecting it means we matter less to AP than we once did.

I don't believe that's the message the AP brass intends to convey.

I believe AP recognizes that newspapers still do courageous journalism that makes a difference, and that most editors apply high ethical standards to the work we create. Cantankerous as we may be, we remain good journalistic partners.

I'm proud to be associated with AP and its journalists, easily some of the best and most courageous in the world. Tom Curley, Kathleen Carroll and other members of AP's senior staff will be in Las Vegas this September when APME celebrates its 75th anniversary.

And as always, they will be happy to answer your questions about these issues or any other.

APME has always been an honest broker in disputes between members and the AP. We take this mission seriously. If you'd like to weigh in, please post your comments in the APME Forum.

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David Ledford is the Vice President and Executive Editor at The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. You can reach him at (302) 324-2860 or via e-mail at dledford@wilmingt.gannett.com.