One small town daily paper in Ohio dropped AP and is managing quite well without it, thank you very much. Two years ago, Andy Prutsok, publisher of the Norwalk Reflector decided to drop AP for purely financial reasons.
AP's membership agreement requires a whopping two years notice before cancellation. This might make The Reflector the first paper in journalism's economic climate to be "post AP." Nieman Journalism Lab talked with Prutsok about life after the wire service:
Q: What kind of changes did you have to make to the paper to make up for the absence of AP content?
Prutsok: Really about the only change we made was a redesign of our front page to eliminate some national briefs we were running in our rail. AP copy was only used as filler otherwise. The only concern we had was agate and we found we were able to get that through PA Sportsticker out of New York. Actually, they have a superior agate package than what we were receiving from AP. We have encountered some formatting issues (we’re only a few weeks into this), but our IT folks are working on it and I’m sure we’ll have it straightened out. We also subscribe to the McClatchy-Tribune wire, MCT Direct. The total cost of the two reduces our monthly wire costs by 67 percent.
. . .
Q: What’s been the reaction from your readers so far?
Prutsok: No reaction. It’s a bigger deal to us than it is to them. Our readers couldn’t care less if we carry the same news that they can get off the evening news.
Curious about the two year rule, I found this explanation on AP's FAQs page. I'm not sure I'd find it satisfying if I were paying $48,000 per year:
Why does cancellation of AP service require a two-year notice?
From almost its inception, AP members, acting directly and through the AP board, have determined that members should provide AP with sufficient advance notice of cancellation of membership to ensure stable ongoing news gathering and distribution operations. This directly benefits AP and the members of the cooperative. The cooperative settled on a two-year notice period as a reasonable balance between the interests of the cooperative and member commitment. This has increased relevance in the current digital environment when AP has been called upon to deliver digital content delivery solutions for the cooperative and to develop and launch the digital cooperative initiative. The two-year notice is both a commitment of membership and a contractual obligation.
AP started losing papers in August; it wasn't difficult to see a trend developing.
Where do you get your national and international news from? Would you miss AP if your local paper dropped it?
(Hat tip: The Editors' Desk)
