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March 7, 2007

To the Sounding Board:

Twenty-five editors nationwide replied to the survey on AP enterprise in newspapers and Web sites. Offerings were gauged on impact, page placement, formats, multimedia presentations, advance transmissions and related issues.

One obvious conclusion: AP enterprise must remain a coat of many colors, covering a range of needs for all AP members. Compelling content, tight presentations and easily localized stories are highly prized.

"We have a rule: If we're going to use a significant wire piece chronicling a national trend we must have a meaningful local voice; otherwise it annoys, rather than delights, readers," said David Ledford of The News Journal, Wilmington, Del.

"These longer enterprise stories are most valuable for use in the Sunday paper, where space is more plentiful," noted Ken Duhe of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.

"We are rarely disappointed in the content that moves under an AP IMPACT slug," said David Stafford of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch.

AP enterprise won praise for revealing fatal delays in procuring armored trucks for Marines in Iraq, thousands of teacher sex offenders, super delegate counts in the presidential race and illegal U.S. military equipment sales to Iran and China.

But the responding editors didn't spare some critical comments.

"Too often AP enterprise stories are too lengthy and need to be heavily edited," said Bill Betterton of the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson.

"We are concerned that AP's shift in focus to 'enterprise' is taking away from what they've always done best: spot, daily news," said Kathleen Cooper of The News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.

AP's optional story approaches "can be very good, but many of them seem to fall too often on cliché ledes," said Dick Moss of the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle.

Suggestions varied on where AP enterprise should put more emphasis:

"Health news; consumer news." — Lois Wilson of the Star-Gazette, Elmira, N.Y.

"Better and more frequent sports and business explanatory and trend stories." — Mark Hester, The Oregonian, Portland.

"Stories that affect people's lives in very tangible ways." — Bill Rose, Palm Beach (Fla.) Post.

"Those with high-value art elements or interaction." — Troy Turner, Farmington (N.M) Daily Times.

"Energy, environment, family issues." — D. Reed Eckhardt, Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Cheyenne.

A summary of responses are in the attached document. Full results and all comments can be accessed at this link:

www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=
7FdiD6IAQpwM7FrZJuUxZTE00NeGPJRpGyZZYW3wNQk_3d

In negotiating the Web site, make use of the navigation arrow at the top of the page.

Clicking on the "view" box at each question yields numerical lists of responders or comment texts. To pair a name with a comment, click the "find" box.

For additional comments/responders, use the left arrow atop the page to return to the summary page. Then click on the view box again and repeat the process.

CLICK HERE to download the PDF of the results.

Dave Minthorn, manager, AP News Administration, coordinates the questions and answers. Newspaper editors wishing to suggest a topic can send an e-mail to Minthorn at dminthorn@ap.org.

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