Time for cash-strapped small papers to dump AP?

[Jim Thomsen]

At a newsroom meeting yesterday, the managers of my 30K seven-day daily newspaper revealed that they have been asked to slash spending in the second half of 2008 by their Scripps Newspapers bosses.

Since the managers have determined that jobs and payroll won't be touched, we're looking at cutting everything from travel and training money (no more help with attending ACES conferences, sadly) to scaling back on supply purchases.

One topic of discussion was wire services. I don't know exactly how much we spend on them, but right now we subscribe to Associated Press, The LA Times-Washington Post News Service and Scripps Howard News Service. (We're not allowed to drop the latter.)

We run very little nation and world wire these days — a page-plus of summaries of top stories and a couple of scaled-down thumbsuckers, usually. That's been the result of a conscious initiative the last couple of years to clear more room for local news as we reduce overall newshole.

We're talking about dropping the LAT-WP service, which is by far the best of what we have.

There are three reasons we're not quite ready to dump AP:

1. The print subscribers — mostly elderly — who still expect us to be a one-stop shopping source of all the news they want might well dump us if we took away news of the world beyond Kitsap County.

2. We're still somewhat dependent on state wire — state government coverage, especially, as well as space-pluggers when our local news report comes up short of filling a given day's newshole.

3. The sports desk is still heavily dependent on wire — especially for sports agate.

But the very fact that we're having this conversation is evidence of our determination to survive by becoming "hyperlocal." And there's no room for AP in that model. I'm confident that our managers — a creative and collaborative bunch — will find a way around each of the three roadblocks in the next few years so we can get this budgeting albatross — one that runs counter to our newfound mission — off our backs.

1. Those elderly print-only, 1950s-newspaper-image readers are becoming less of a viable economic lobby with each passing year.

2. I believe Washington's dailies will form a news cooperative that will supplant the need for AP statehouse coverage.

3. The mission of sports will evolve toward local-only as well. (Though even I will admit that I'll miss the morning pleasure of picking through baseball box scores.)

Does this reasoning make sense for your small paper as well?

[Jim Thomsen]

What I've predicted is starting to come to pass, as the Idaho Falls daily gives its two-year notice to drop AP membership.

While the AP’s value to us has been severely diminished over the years, it still does provide a handful of services that we haven’t been able to find elsewhere -- yet. I’m betting, however, that it’s only a matter of time. More likely, we’ll use that time to become essentially 100 percent local, which is probably where we’re headed eventually anyway.”

That's Idaho Falls Post Register editor Roger Plothow speaking.

When you (AP president Tom Curley) were gracious enough to visit Idaho shortly after you were named the Associated Press’ president, you and I spoke briefly about the need for the association to adopt a ‘cafeteria’ approach for its members, allowing us to pay for what we use. This new plan isn’t it. I’ll repeat now what I said then: We want to receive about a quarter of what we now get from the AP and pay about half of our current fee. A quarter of the product for half the price seems fair and doable.

Plothow also called his $114,000 assessment for 2009 “the worst value for anything we purchase, since we use so little of what we’re paying for.”

Good for you, Roger. Look for many other small dailies to follow suit sooner than later.

[Jim Thomsen]

Four more papers tell AP to kiss their asses.

Three are papers in my state: The Spokane Spokesman-Review, the Yakima Herald-Republic and the Wenatchee World. (The fourth is the Bakersfield Californian.)

"Our lawyers think that we don’t have to wait two years," said Steve Smith, Spokesman-Review editor. "By the end of this week, we will have nailed down all of the things we have to do to replace AP."

Glad to see Smith got over his fever of fuzzy-brained nostalgia to do what was necessary and pragmatic.

I'm going to pressure the bosses at my paper to do the same. In two years, we can a) form a statewide news cooperative in the Ohio mold; and b) step up local coverage to fit our daily newshole.

AP is a needless luxury for small papers in today's cost-conscious world. Creative newsroom managers can get statewide/statehouse coverage within two years in a far more cost-effective way.

[JunO]

My paper hasn't dropped AP yet, but this morning we've signed on to McClatchy's MCT Direct with access to state coverage -- our state as well as the others. So it wouldn't surprise me if we're making that move.

My newspaper is part of a small chain, so we snag each other's stories when we think it's needed, and we've recently been building up a photo server, although not all the papers contribute to it on a regular basis. I know they're wanting to eventually market that to other small papers in the state. Plus, our group has reporters in Topeka, so we'd be covered for legislative news.

We had a free trial with MCT a couple years ago, and the things we didn't like had more to do with breaking national/international news.

[Jim Thomsen]

Bite me, Minneapolis Star Tribune tells AP.