This week, the Gannett and McClatchy newspaper chains announced that they will stop using the Associated Press, except for election polls. Both chains indicated that they would try to fill the gap by using news stories from sister papers for national coverage.
A couple of thoughts: One, it’s a negotiating ploy. Two, they’ve already reduced their use of AP coverage, so it doesn’t really matter anymore.
Let’s assume that it’s not a negotiation and the Wall Streeters who control these companies – two of the Big 3 newspaper owners, which means they are pretty much the dominant player in local news on all platforms – really do want to save the money earmarked for wire service for something else. They say they’ll reinvest in their newsrooms, but it’s just as likely that the investors will have their hands out, too.
And, again, it doesn’t matter, because the product’s been diminished already. Here in South Florida, we have daily papers owned by Gannett, McClatchy, and Alden Global Capital, and they are all a shadow of what they once were.
On some days, the home page of McClatchy’s Miami Herald is stocked full of repurposed clickbait articles from TheStreet and Life & Style, as well as opinion pieces from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and other papers. The Herald still does some excellent local reporting, but subscribing to the paper gets you a lot of clickbait you can get elsewhere.
Meanwhile, up the coast, Gannett’s Palm Beach Post has some local coverage and a whole lot of USA Today content. Much of the local content is of the “Best 15 Restaurants On The Waterfront” variety. We had a primary election on Tuesday and if you weren’t extremely attentive, you wouldn’t have noticed. (The Democrats didn’t hold a primary, but in some cities, there were local elections right alongside the Republican primaries, something I didn’t even know until I saw a candidate for Mayor of Delray Beach eating lunch at the same restaurant…he won.)
Local television news isn’t much better. They do have access to their networks and CNN for national and international news, but a lot of the content, at least in the smaller West Palm market, is from sister stations, with minimal attempts to cover that fact up. There’s a lot of Nashville news and features on the West Palm NBC affiliate. It costs money to do a similar story with a local crew, so education features from Nashville and consumer stories from Cincinnati it is.
This might have been inevitable. The vast majority of consumers don’t subscribe to newspapers, don’t look at their websites, don’t watch local news, don’t watch cable news, don’t listen to the radio for news. Social media is enough for them, never mind where social media’s news is sourced. If the Miami Herald is short on international coverage, features Texas political commentary, and runs “You’ll Never Guess What Selena Gomez Said On The Red Carpet” stories on the home page, there won’t be an outcry.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe the public can get what AP offers from other places. Maybe headlines on Facebook and quick clips and cat videos on TikTok are enough for most people, and the oldsters who still get a hard copy of the local daily won’t notice and will just skip to the comics as usual (“oh, that Dagwood!”).
And maybe we’ve already reached the point where news doesn’t move the needle, when people have already made up their minds about everything and don’t care for anything beyond “I know what I know.”
It’s strange, though. We’re in an era when there are more ways to disseminate news than at any other point in history, and at the same time, the news business is suffering, and people aren’t nearly as alarmed as they should be. Someone should do a story on that.
Perry Michael Simon is a weekly news media columnist for Barrett Media. He previously served as VP and Editor/News-Talk-Sports/Podcast for AllAccess.com. Prior to joining the industry trade publication, Perry spent years in radio working as a Program Director and Operations Manager for KLSX and KLYY in Los Angeles and New Jersey 101.5 in Trenton. He can be found on X (formerly Twitter) @PMSimon.
