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Since the Mexican-American War of 1846, newspapers large and small have turned to the Associated Press for reporting from places inaccessible to their own reporters.

With more than 200 bureaus around the globe, the AP remains the biggest brand name among what came to be known as the wire services, transmitting its articles and images to news outlets for a licensing fee. Some smaller papers came to rely so heavily on its content that “AP” was their single most frequent byline.

But now, two major American newspaper chains have said they will no longer use the AP for news. Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and more than 200 local newspapers, and McClatchy, which publishes the Miami Herald and Kansas City Star among more than two dozen other newspapers, said this week that they were ending their content relationship with the AP.

In <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/business/media/gannett-mcclatchy-ap-associated-press.html" target=_blank>memos to staff</a> and public statements, executives with both companies described it as a cost-saving move — in the “millions” of dollars, according to McClatchy brass — and said they will have no trouble filling the news gap.

“We create more journalism every day than the AP,” Gannett executive Kristin Roberts said in a Tuesday memo <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/gannett-drops-ap-associated-press-usa-today/" target=_blank>obtained by the Wrap</a>.

But some media observers — including staff members at the affected newspapers — warned that the decision will cut off a vital source of reliable reporting that their readers have come to depend on.

“It’s a loss,” Ilana Keller, a content planner and reporter at the Gannett-owned Asbury Park Press in New Jersey, told The Washington Post. “As our reporting staff got smaller and smaller, we relied more on more on wire services to help fill in the gaps, and losing that is incredible.”

Margot Susca, an American University journalism professor and author of “Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy,” said she is worried about what might now fill those pages.

“The Associated Press is one of the most reliable organizations that provides … national and state coverage,” she said emphasizing the role “objective reporting” plays in an election year.

“For anyone who cares about news in a functioning democracy,” she added, “this is just another nail in the coffin.”

In an emailed statement, AP spokeswoman Nicole Meir said the news service hopes Gannett and McClatchy will continue to use its content news services and that conversations with both chains are ongoing, suggesting the publishers’ decisions could be part of a contract negotiation strategy.

“We appreciate that these are difficult decisions to make and deeply understand the challenges the news industry faces,” Meir said in the statement. “At the same time, this would be a disservice to news consumers across the U.S. who would no longer see fact-based journalism from the AP.”

McClatchy did not respond to a request for comment. Gannett spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton told The Post that the decision to drop AP news “enables us to invest further in our journalism.”

At a journalism conference in Atlanta on Wednesday, Gannett CEO Mike Reed expanded on this idea. According to two attendees, Reed said that AP content was not as well read as locally produced stories; as such, it made better financial sense to save the money and hire local reporters to produce more of what readers want. (Indeed last year, Gannett sparked a mini-controversy by posting job openings for reporters dedicated to covering Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.)

But despite these recent efforts to beef up newsrooms — Gannett also recently pledged $2 million to building up operations at the Indy Star — there’s widespread skepticism about its intentions for its local news empire.

“It’s a pattern of we’re being told, 'Oh, we’re going to do whatever we can to save money so we can reinvest it in the newsrooms, and we’re not seeing that,” said Mike Davis, another Asbury Park Press reporter who is acting unit chair of the union that represents the paper. Last year, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/06/01/gannett-journalist-strike-walkout-protest-ceo/" target=_blank>hundreds of journalists at Gannett newspapers in several states went on strike</a> to protest the company’s newsroom cuts.

“The lowest earner in our unit has been here for 33 years, and makes $39,000,” Davis said. “We’ve had jobs open for almost two years and we haven’t filled them.”

Tim Franklin, senior associate dean of Northwestern’s Medill journalism school and director of its Local News Initiative, said it’s fair for staff to be skeptical.

“The big question is, is this going to be reinvested back in local newsrooms?” he said, adding that doing so would be “good journalism and good business practice.”

Susca thinks Gannett’s recent history speaks for itself, noting that the chain’s total staff has shrunk by 47 percent in the past three years.

“For Mike Reed to say that Gannett wants to provide robust local news, when over the course of four years that company has cut more than half of his staff as the largest newspaper chain in America, it’s laughable,” she said.

Both companies have struggled financially in recent years. In 2019, Gannett merged with GateHouse Media under New Media Investment Group, a subsidiary of private equity firm Fortress Investment Group, in a deal that left Gannett saddled with debt. McClatchy was sold to hedge fund Chatham Asset Management in a 2020 bankruptcy auction.

“Certainly I hear people say that these are bad years for newspapers, but it’s never a bad year for executive pay,” Susca said. In 2021, for example, Reed earned $7,741,052 according to SEC filings, while the company continued to lay off employees.

Gannett said it will continue to license the AP’s election data and its stylebook, a set of language and grammar guidelines for newsrooms.

The AP said U.S. newspaper fees account for around 10 percent of its annual income and that the loss in revenue from Gannett and McClatchy would not drastically impact its finances.

An earlier version of this story misspelled the first name of Gannett executive Kristin Roberts. The story has been corrected.

Georgetown University, BA in government

Laura Wagner is a reporter at The Washington Post covering the changing digital media industry. 

Laura  Wagner

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