Trib to be "AP Free" Next Week

I know we've discussed the possibility of major papers dropping AP in the past but apparently the Trib is planning to publish a full week - starting Nov. 8 - with no AP copy beyond sports agate & stats.

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2009/11/tribune-co-papers-rewiring-for-experimental-week-without-ap.html

 

If they still use AP sports agate, they obviously still need AP.

 

more Trib brilliance

 

Are they going to be a smaller paper with less coverage of are they hiring?

 

I don't think it's a bad move, actually.

Our business model needs to be drastically changed. The goal should be for all of our content to be unique and interesting. This is a step toward unique. Hopefully, they can replace the AP stuff with interesting local content.

It ain't 1986, anymore, as badly as we wish it was.

 

This will be fun. Football Monday's are going to rock without any content from non-Chicago games. Keep fucking that chicken, Trib.

 

There is barely any non-Chicago football content in Monday's paper anyway. I can't imagine this will make much of a difference.

 

Not hiring.

 

This strikes me as, uh, interesting on the news side of the good ol' Tri-Bune.

Haven't they recently slashed away at all their foreign and/or Washington correspondents?

How are they going to report on vital national news, such as what Michelle Obama wore for Halloween?

 

Precisely my point. The paper's breadth of coverage will suffer unless the AP content was redundant with whatever other syndicated stuff they use. I seriously doubt that's the case, so the newspaper's overall quality will likely be reduced.

 

They'll still have some wire — Reuters, NYTimes, Global Post, plus the other Tribune papers, and while it wasn't mentioned, they probably also have LATWP, McClatchy and Scripps all available as supplemental wire services.

I was AP, I'd be worried about this. Big papers don't need the AP as some people believe. Outside of photos and agate, what's the AP for? Just an easy way to fill a hole. With all the other wire services available, the Trib papers will have every game covered. Every national event. Everything. Just a little harder to find or maybe not as early as the desk would like and it will need a little editing to remove some of the local angle coverage.

 

Smarter move would be to drop Reuters, NYTimes, Global Post and keep AP because even with those services the breadth of local, state, national and international coverage will be reduced. None of the others mentioned come close to the AP's staffing level.