The Pulp Collapse, Cont’d…

We reported on the pending marginalization of AP and Reuters here. Well it seems to be proceeding apace. Last report this move was centered in the Southeast of the US. Now it seems to have spread Westward. –

“I think the AP regional report has fallen off in quantity, and in some ways, quality,” claims Paul Emerson, managing editor at the Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune, which gave notice to AP in September — even though its rates would drop about 17% under the new system. “It is mostly a concern about content.” At least one paper, the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., is challenging AP’s two-year-notice requirement and plans to stop using and paying for the wire service by the end of the year. “The legal point here is that we are not canceling a contract, we are declining to sign a new contract,” says Editor Steve Smith, who admits a $30,000 expected savings in 2009, but says the remaining $375,000 AP bill is too high. “More editors are feeling disenfranchised and disregarded by AP.”

AP officials declined to comment for this story. But AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, addressing the rate issue during the Associated Press Managing Editors conference in Las Vegas last month, told a group of newspaper editors there, “we certainly hope that the basic fundamentals of the economy and the marketplace will firm up enough so that the pressure is off some of the people who own the AP.”

But even with promised AP cuts, editors have been dissatisfied, saying they cannot afford it. Others have claimed the news content is not what they need, particularly with regard to regional and state coverage. “We are exploring our options to see what our outs are,” says Ben Marrison, editor of The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and one of eight Ohio editors who wrote jointly to AP in late 2007 to complain. “All of our department heads are exploring what it would mean if we had AP or did not have AP.”

First thing I have noticed is that these ‘revolts’ have been principally in the smaller paper concerns. Those companies where the brunt of the AP/Reuters bills are borne. The bigger concerns get rate cut deals that the smaller guys are not afforded. So it makes sense.

But there is opportunity here that I don’t think the regionals have considered yet. The papers are banding together to provide regional coverage. But why not take that concept national? From an IT perspective it would not take much. Only a small server to maintain the bibliographic reference. The content would stay with the source papers computers. When a request comes in from the clearing house the source paper sends the article on.

The logical next step? Computerized assignment coverage. No use 6 regional papers sending 6 reporters on the same story when 2 would do. Saves labor. For the reporters it also provides an avenue for national byline that generally only are earned by being at the NYT, AJC or LAT. Editors still reserve who they send. The computer determines who is next up in the queue so that costs are shared by every paper in the consortium.

Willing to lay bets somebody in the pulp media will figure this out.

Linky.