Shocker: Tribune Co. Gives Notice To Drop AP
NEW YORK Tribune Company has given a two-year notice to the Associated Press that its daily newspapers plan to drop the news service, becoming the first major newspaper chain to do so since the recent controversy over new rates began.
Tribune, which owns nine daily papers including the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, joins a growing list of newspapers that have sought to end AP contracts, or given notice of that, following plans to introduce a new controversial rate structure in 2009. The notice was given earlier this week.
Well there it is:
Tribune daily papers besids the flagship in Chicago affected include The Sun Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; The Orlando Sentinel; Red Eye of Chicago; the Hartford Courant; The Baltimore Sun; The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa.; and The Daily Press of Newport News, Va.
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In recent months, other non-Tribune papers have also given the required two-year's notice to drop AP. Those include: The Star Tribune of Minneapolis, The Bakersfield Californian, The Post Register of Idaho Falls, and The Yakima Herald-Republic and Wenatchee World, both of Washington.
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The recent decisions to drop AP service follow the planned AP rate structure change, which was announced in 2007 and takes effect in 2009. The rate change initially prompted complaints from numerous newspapers, including two groups of editors who wrote angry letters to AP to complain in late 2007 and early 2008.
I've always had a bit of a soft spot in my heart for the Chicago Tribune. They were my home town newspaper growing up, and although I never agreed with their editorial lean, they are as close to a William F Buckley-type-Republican leaning daily as you're ever going to find. I'm sure business costs played a large if not primary role in the decision to cut ties with the AP. But I'd like to believe that the AP's recently adopted hack-right wing lean quickened the demise.
The AP is dead. May it rot in hell.