WASHINGTON -- The Capital Conference annual newspaper convention moved past pleasantries on its final morning as steamed metro editors aired their grievances with The Associated Press.
AP President and CEO Tom Curley accepted an invitation to step into what moderator David Boardman, executive editor of The Seattle Times, called "a lions' den" of angry editors. Curley got an earful. The AP and its policies were variously compared to a cable company that charges extra for the best channels, a game of three-card monte and the Politburo.
The editors have two beefs. Fees are high, typically running up to $1 million a year for a metro paper, Boardman said. AP has offered some rate relief in 2009, but editors of the big papers, under intense newsroom budget pressure, think the reductions are not nearly enough.
That is all the more irksome because the state wire services now offer more thematic enterprise stories -- which the metro papers typically cover with their own staff -- and are pulling back on meat and potatoes coverage such as fatal car accidents and legislative hearings.
Curley replied that AP must cover the big stories for smaller newspaper and broadcast clients, who welcome topical coverage (immigration in New Jersey was offered as an example). And though metros might wish that AP would pick up coverage of the suburbs where they have cut back on staffing, he said, that is not the organization's mission and won't happen.
Marty Baron, editor of The Boston Globe and a leader of the rebels, said there are no details yet on what AP is calling a "member's choice" program with basic service and five a la carte enhancements. "I can't tell what stories are in which bucket," Baron said, so he remains uncertain whether the system will save him money.
Baron and others told me after the meeting that there is no chance of their resigning from the AP. "We can't," he said, "but we have created a monopoly that has started to act more like an entrepreneurial business than a member cooperative."
That may suit AP's board, which is made up of the highest-level newspaper media executives -- and this week added Sam Zell, Rupert Murdoch and Gannett CEO Craig Dubow. The editors believe those moguls are blase about their concerns and are seeking hotter market opportunities elsewhere as papers' news-gathering capacity is hurting.
Curley and AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll, in a separate interview, flipped that point. AP's other clients and new ventures now subsidize the service to American newspapers, which runs at a substantial loss, they said. That isn't expected to change.
Carroll said she understands the perspective of the editors of metro papers who want to cover "the high-impact stuff" themselves and want "AP to fill in the cracks." However, she said, that is probably not the best value for their money. "It is hard to consistently satisfy" them, she added.
A group of Ohio metro papers recently set up their own story exchange independent of AP. After this morning's session, it seems sure that there are plenty more battles to come in this insurrection.
