Thank you for this wise analysis. The comparison to McDonalds is right on target. My online AP stories ask for donations, and your column has convinced me that I should donate.
As a Gannett reporter, I'm never going to stand up to defend Gannett's corporate practices. But to offer another perspective: AP used to employ four journalists in my state. By the time we dropped our partnership lastyear, that was down to (supposedly) one, our state AP feed was managed from an office two states away, and the answer to the question "is AP moving anything on that" was invariably no. We were paying quite a bit of money for it, and when we dropped out last year, I can say that at our level, the only pain point was having to root old AP photos out of our CMS.
So, again, without defending the motives of Mike Reed, worth noting that AP's service, at least in some markets, was declining well before Gannett decided to go it's own way.
AP is already in deep doo-doo. It has been soliciting donations from readers of its newsletters for a year or so. A sad time for one of Americas proudest bastions of good, old-fashioned, honest reportage. While AP begs for handouts, its reality-based (vs alternate facts) journalism has become a mistrusted, disfavored commodity, hardly worth paying for. We get what we pay for -- in this case an uninformed, or misinformed, electorate, and the leaders that ignorance inevitably elevates. Ironically, AP is our most trusted arbiter of election coverage.
Good article Matt. Found this through Defector’s newsletter. I have an on/off relationship with the AP. I’ll spend a few months reading the site daily before I quit, then repeat the cycle. It’s tough to find a good source of “hard” news these days.
Good analysis. I always enjoyed your work at the LA Times and glad I came across this link in Connecting. I once worked at a Gannett paper, for 2 1/2 years before spending the next 34 at several AP bureaus. Greatest professional move I ever made. While I loved my colleagues at Gannett, management was despicable. They bragged of turning a profit every quarter and did so in part by freezing overtime if it looked like they might fail to do at times when the economy slowed. That didn't mean you didn't work overtime, you had to, you just didn't dare put in for it under threat of being fired. When USA Today was first formed it was propped up by loaner journalists from other Gannett publications and was derided as McPaper, something I recalled upon reading your McDonald's comparison. It's much better now of course, and Gannett has had (notice I wrote had) many fine journalists over the years and still has some, but its corporate leaders from Neuharth to the present were always about making money first and producing good journalism, well maybe at some point after that and maybe not. That's never changed.
What? Rescue the AP when it's committed its own screwups for 30 years, ever since Deano Singleton — wearing his AP board of directors chairman's hat, not his Media Snooze one — WRONGLY! (and not just in hindsight, but at the time) touted the "TV model" for online newspapers.
Since then, the AP has been slow to react on creating multiple tiers of service contracts for different-sized newspapers and other things.
Then, more recently, we likely have some degree of money-laundering behind its newfound commitment to community journalism (after rectifying "misstatements" in its initial claims, post-Gannett departure) about how much or how little US print journalism was part of its revenue stream: https://beloblogging.blogspot.com/2024/07/ap-wants-to-raise-100m-for-community.html
Thank you for this wise analysis. The comparison to McDonalds is right on target. My online AP stories ask for donations, and your column has convinced me that I should donate.
As a Gannett reporter, I'm never going to stand up to defend Gannett's corporate practices. But to offer another perspective: AP used to employ four journalists in my state. By the time we dropped our partnership lastyear, that was down to (supposedly) one, our state AP feed was managed from an office two states away, and the answer to the question "is AP moving anything on that" was invariably no. We were paying quite a bit of money for it, and when we dropped out last year, I can say that at our level, the only pain point was having to root old AP photos out of our CMS.
So, again, without defending the motives of Mike Reed, worth noting that AP's service, at least in some markets, was declining well before Gannett decided to go it's own way.
This is a fair criticism.
AP is already in deep doo-doo. It has been soliciting donations from readers of its newsletters for a year or so. A sad time for one of Americas proudest bastions of good, old-fashioned, honest reportage. While AP begs for handouts, its reality-based (vs alternate facts) journalism has become a mistrusted, disfavored commodity, hardly worth paying for. We get what we pay for -- in this case an uninformed, or misinformed, electorate, and the leaders that ignorance inevitably elevates. Ironically, AP is our most trusted arbiter of election coverage.
That's not to mention AP already entering the e-commerce world — which also raises ethical issues: https://beloblogging.blogspot.com/2024/03/so-ap-is-going-to-sell-us-shit-now.html
Thank you! Excellent analysis of the devolution/McDonaldization of journalism.
propaganda is where the money is
Is it more UBER than McDonalds?
Good article Matt. Found this through Defector’s newsletter. I have an on/off relationship with the AP. I’ll spend a few months reading the site daily before I quit, then repeat the cycle. It’s tough to find a good source of “hard” news these days.
Good analysis. I always enjoyed your work at the LA Times and glad I came across this link in Connecting. I once worked at a Gannett paper, for 2 1/2 years before spending the next 34 at several AP bureaus. Greatest professional move I ever made. While I loved my colleagues at Gannett, management was despicable. They bragged of turning a profit every quarter and did so in part by freezing overtime if it looked like they might fail to do at times when the economy slowed. That didn't mean you didn't work overtime, you had to, you just didn't dare put in for it under threat of being fired. When USA Today was first formed it was propped up by loaner journalists from other Gannett publications and was derided as McPaper, something I recalled upon reading your McDonald's comparison. It's much better now of course, and Gannett has had (notice I wrote had) many fine journalists over the years and still has some, but its corporate leaders from Neuharth to the present were always about making money first and producing good journalism, well maybe at some point after that and maybe not. That's never changed.
What? Rescue the AP when it's committed its own screwups for 30 years, ever since Deano Singleton — wearing his AP board of directors chairman's hat, not his Media Snooze one — WRONGLY! (and not just in hindsight, but at the time) touted the "TV model" for online newspapers.
Since then, the AP has been slow to react on creating multiple tiers of service contracts for different-sized newspapers and other things.
Then, more recently, we likely have some degree of money-laundering behind its newfound commitment to community journalism (after rectifying "misstatements" in its initial claims, post-Gannett departure) about how much or how little US print journalism was part of its revenue stream: https://beloblogging.blogspot.com/2024/07/ap-wants-to-raise-100m-for-community.html
And, that's not to mention AP already entering the e-commerce world — which also raises ethical issues: https://beloblogging.blogspot.com/2024/03/so-ap-is-going-to-sell-us-shit-now.html
So, unlike another commenter, that red button gives me zero desire to donate to the AP.
Matt. I sent a question to you when I subscribed. It was about the LWV. Did you receive?
Pamela, I’m not sure if I got it - could you email me at mattdpearce@gmail.com? Thank you!
Weird, I was told Gannett would be investing the savings from AP into its newsrooms...?