The Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane, Washington is ditching the Associated Press. The service no longer meets the paper’s needs according to editor Steven A. Smith. AP chairman and MediaNews CEO William Dean Singleton says the AP is the “best bargain I know,” and said “AP has become the whipping boy for an angry bunch of editors who want to blame somebody for their woes.”
Smith fought back. First he said that the AP is not his “whipping boy,” and said he doesn’t blame the AP for the situation his – and many – paper faces. Then he destroys the AP: ” I mourn the loss of strong regional AP reporting;” “AP at the rates charged for content that does not meet my readers’ needs means laying off more local staff;” “there are better and cheaper alternatives to the AP;” “in Singleton’s world, AP is a bargain. It’s far cheaper to fill your papers with AP copy than local reporting.”
Wow. For the record, the Spokesman-Review has a Boise reporter who provides some of the best coverage of state issues – and she works for a paper based far from the Idaho capital in another state. Smith walks the walk when he says local is important – and I’d love to have a paper that wasn’t filled with AP copy in my town each day.