On Wednesday, Tom Curley, president and CEO of Associated Press, spoke at the annual conference of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) and the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) and stated that "the news cooperative hasn't changed its fundamental mission, but must have a more flexible business model to meet the changing dynamic of the media industry."

In order to help struggling newspapers, AP has already offered price cuts for fees paid by members, expanding video and business coverage, and creating a digital archive database that members can search.

The AP also plans to re-price and re-package its news for its 1,500 daily U.S. newspapers, which would entail a core service for all national, state, and international breaking news with separate add-ons of premium service, instead of offering news feeds defined largely by the volume of news delivered.

Many newspapers are unreceptive to this plan due to the lack of specifics, but Curley assures that more details will be available in July.

"I can't sit here today and tell you that we at The Boston Globe are going to save any money from this program because I quite frankly have a hard time understanding the program,"  Martin Baron, editor of The Boston Globe, said.

David Shribman, vice president and executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, remarked that his paper is getting too many enterprise stories from the AP and not enough of the day-to-day coverage it needs. "I think you vastly underestimate the resentment and anger in this room over the AP's policy," he said.

Curley said "the company is trying to respond to member needs and wants to hear from member newspapers about AP services."

Another service AP is adopting, in addition to tracking service Attributor, used to monitor content, is iCopyright, a copyright protection service, for online users of its content.
 
Every AP-hosted story will include links to the iCopyright service, which will allow AP content users to email content, request copies, purchase photos or publish to their own websites. It will also "guide users through the appropriate licensing arrangement or payment process for aggregating content."

The system will faciliate monitoring copyright compliance and identifying pirated and misappropriated stories, according to Bruce Glover, AP deputy director of business development.

Mike O'Donnell, founder and CEO of iCopyright, encourages news sites to add the links to AP stories on their own websites "to promote an industry-wide standard for online copyright protection."

Source: Associated Press through IFRA Executive News Service, Journalism.co.uk (photo)