Dow Jones dumps AP

interesting because news corp is in at least one joint venture with AP

 

I was hoping to avoid this by saying small papers have to do what's expedient. I did say that. The problem we have is that very large newspapers are talking about going "hyperlocal" and blaming use of wires when they should be blaming misuse of wires.

I don't think going hyperlocal is the answer for large newspapers. The paper in my county is a decent size, but I don't read it because, although I like where I live, there just isn't much interesting stuff happening here, and when there is, the major metros will have it, along with all the other shit that should be in a decent newspaper. It's a very pleasant place to live, and that's because it lacks drama on a daily basis. Which makes for pretty sucky reading, especially when the outside world gets basically ignored.

There's plenty of interesting stuff outside the county, though, and I like reading about that. Some good murders elsewhere in the state, almost every day. And my town can go months without anything but space-fillers just so they can have a dateline with my dinky town in it. Just because we live here doesn't mean we're stupid enough to want to read about it.

 

Some papers can't afford to dump wire services entirely.

Mine can't, even though now we only use wire on occasion.