CNN Ditches AP

by Erik Sass, Jun 21, 2010, 9:00 PM

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This week brought more trouble for the Associated Press, with an announcement from CNN that it has stopped using AP content in favor of its own original reporting. This desertion follows a series of challenges to the AP's position as the dominant newswire service, motivated by the financial woes of its subscription clients.

As part of the strategic shift and cost-cutting move, CNN said it will expand its own CNN Wire division, including distribution of content across television, mobile and Internet platforms. In fact, CNN Wire represents a potential competitor to the AP: back in November 2008, CNN pitched newspapers on CNN Wire as a low-cost alternative to the AP.

Although CNN said the most recent move was intended to differentiate CNN from other news providers that use AP content, the cable network also announced a new partnership with Reuters, suggesting that simple cost may be the main factor behind the decision.

Over the last couple of years, a growing chorus of publishers has complained about the high cost of membership in the AP, especially as their finances have been pressed by the rise of the Internet and the economic downturn, leading to a number of services and agreements competing with the AP.

Most recently, Publish2 launched a new online news exchange that allows publishers to create customized content-sharing networks of varying size. In a blog post on the site, CEO Scott Karp was clear about the purpose of the new service, calling it "a platform aimed at disrupting the Associated Press monopoly over content distribution to newspapers," which he described as an "obsolete cooperative."

At launch, the Publish2 News Exchange includes newswires created by TechCrunch, Engadget, Politics Daily, Daily Finance, AOL Small Business and the Huffington Post Investigative Fund.

Also last month, a dozen newspapers in Georgia announced they are teaming up for coverage of political campaigns. And this is the latest in a series of news-sharing partnerships created by newspapers and other news publishers separate from the AP. In December 2008, The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun struck a deal to share articles and photos beginning in January, while McClatchy Co. said it would share foreign news stories with The Christian Science Monitor.

In February 2009, five big regional daily newspapers in New York and New Jersey, including The New York Daily News, formed a content-sharing club, the Northeast Consortium, which allows them to borrow stories, photos, and graphics from each other.

In August 2009, at least 49 daily newspapers joined a national consortium that will allow them to share sports content, in a move to expand the array of sports coverage available to each newspaper while reducing costs. The sports content-sharing site is modeled on an earlier news-sharing alliance, the Ohio News Organization, created by the Plain Dealer and other Ohio papers in 2008.

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