My paper's dropping the AP wire - has yours?

Thanks, JD. I am indeed bitching, but I want to turn this into a constructive bitch session.

Our top news reporter is furious with this decision, because she often uses wire stories as a starting point for localizing stories.

 

WHERE....WHERE did I say the paper shouldn't have election results? I never said that, never implied it. All I am saying is that not having wire won't hurt, because papers can get election results off county/state/national websites and put in a box talley. The paper can focus on the local elections.
I'm not saying it's wise not to have wire service either, I'm just asking who seriously reads the paper for the national results? Would not having a story on the presidential election really hurt a small paper?
If you wanna draw misguided conclusions about what I said or implied, then Yeah, you SHOULD give up.

 

I once worked for a 6-day paper in a town of 10,000. The locals hated the AP wire and would have loved it if we had dropped it. The major complaint I heard about the paper: it ran AP content.

Many (most?) of them truly didn't give a fuck about what happened anywhere else. The few that did bought the big-city daily.

There was a rival paper in town...a twice-weekly. Their editor used to lampoon us, the established daily, for running AP copy. Somehow, he started the meme that the letters "AP" stood for "Albert Perez." So his columns contained frequent references to the Palookaville Daily Herald and that prolific writer of theirs, Albert Perez. "Looks like Albert Perez had another busy week for the Daily Herald." "Once again, Albert Perez wrote most of the articles in the Daily Herald."

 

How fucking juvenile. Not to mention overly provincial to the nth degree.

It must have taken every ounce of personal class and journalistic decorum not to give this Gomer Pyle hayseed the skewering he deserved.

 

Instant karma fucked this particular Knight of the Keyboard quite hard. He was a former editor of the daily who had been canned...the twice-weekly was a pure grudge paper.

He was a big fat fuck, always enraged. One day he got pissed when some kids skateboarded in front of his (downtown, main street) office. He chased them on foot and had a heart attack. Airlifted to big-city hospital. Grudge Paper Editor survived the heart attack...spent about a week in the hospital.

Less than a month later, his 20-something, stoned graphics department dude informs Grudge Paper Editor that he's quitting...to work for the daily. Grudge Paper Editor freaks out on stoner graphics dude. Chases him into the alley, screaming profanities. Cops show up. Editor has second heart attack. Airlifted to hospital again. Dead on arrival.

Moral: Hate kills.

Carry on...

 

Sheesh.

 

cadet, can you get with the state colleges and what not and have them send their releases to you. that way you can still have state news and now have to have wire. als, does your state athletic association have a site that updates scores? you might be able to get some off that, or get with the other writers and have a netowrk set up. those might help. good luck.

 

Eh, fuck the AP.

You can always get the INS. No wait ...
You can always get the UPI. No wait ...

Ugh. Looks like in addition to bigger photos you will need ...

Ginormous house ads!

Better still, the ginormous house ads can say, "Read ginormous house ads everyday in the Daily Shitter!"

 

Thank you all for your input. This gives me a lot of level-headed arguments in case we get to have a say.

I do have relationships with other papers and could use their assistance in a pinch, but it's not fair to them to pick up my paper's cheap-ass slack. Also, U. of State has a good media relations office, but State U.'s SID is incompetent and I'd spend more time correcting his releases than writing my own story.

My biggest fear is being on deadline, having something fall through and staring at a 16-inch hole that I have absolutely no way to fill.

 

Yeah, I'd look into that.

 

What they said.