Associated Press as Napsterized news ?

The Associated Press is planting the seeds of its own demise, writes Bob Benz and Mike Phillips in an article published in the Online Journalism Review:

AP’s most recent act of self-destruction was its April 18 announcement that it would start charging newspaper and broadcast clients an additional fee for using AP content on their web sites.
This move — sprung on its clients just as they are recognizing the urgent need to reinvent themselves in multi-media, web-driven modes — ignores powerful trends:

* All forms of content are migrating – each to its most appropriate medium. Readers and advertisers are following.

* As news media and other information providers jump into one media platform after another, the Web is emerging as their operational core.

* From blogs to open-source journalism to free newspapers, a wave of unpaid information is sweeping paid information off the media beach.

* As content loses value, expert editing and customer-driven bundling are becoming the tools for building audience. And audience — not content — is the news industry’s value proposition.

Contrast those trends with AP’s recent moves: Link to article at www.ojr.org

Read my last note on AP. Link

Read the discussion I had with the author Bob Benz about newspaper registration here on this blog

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