Up next: AP

[HanSenSE]

And here we go again.

 

[HanSenSE]

Some big woman shoes are gonna need filling.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

Why is she covering a Russian team?

SИATIT

 

[dixiehack]

Why is she covering a Russian team?

SИATIT

If you can’t win in English, try something new.

BTE will still be a dirty Colts fan though.

 

[BTExpress]

Almost 60-year habit tough to break. Would be nice if they'd dump that fragile Gator QB whom they never should have drafted.

 

[ShaneRivera]

Should be separate from the gripe thread.













Navigating tight editing deadlines and breaking news updates in sports journalism is always a intense balancing act. Back when I helped cover regional high school tournaments, tracking real-time wire feeds like AP while polishing game recaps under strict time constraints felt like absolute chaos. Keeping up with shifting editorial schedules really tests your patience and organization. I ended up bookmarking an insightful source that shared practical tips on streamlining media workflows while waiting for final scores to come in during a late-night shift. Smooth reporting processes make a huge difference in staying sane during busy seasons.

Newberry in Atlanta, Bernie in San Diego, Kurz, Zenor, Iacobelli... These aren't just "staff cuts." This is when entire states are wiped from the AP Sports map. Alabama is without a full-time sports correspondent. Ohio, with eight pro teams, is the same. Washington, apparently, is next. And then they'll wonder why only stringers are covering the games, while enterprise and breaking news have disappeared.
I still remember the days when AP sports reporting was the gold standard. Clean, fast, no fluff, with the right emphasis. Now it's more like, "Let's feed this to a neural network; it can handle it." The newspapers have long since gone, Gannett and McClatchy have dropped out, and Lee is trying to get their act together. So what's left? Pivots in visuals and AI. A classic example of the genre.
It's sad, of course. These people shut down entire regions single-handedly and did it better than entire teams can now. But business is business. Until this thread is shut down as unnecessary.

 

[playthrough]

This thread isn't going anywhere, don't worry.

Business is business -- I don't know how many outlets still subscribe to the AP, but it's fewer than just a couple years ago and a far cry from 20 years ago. And it's not like a local joint where in theory you could boost coverage to win back readers, the AP could hire everyone back and it wouldn't save itself.

 

[Batman]

We, a small local paper, held on to our AP service a few years longer than we probably should have. We negotiated some deals to stay in with differing levels of service, before finally getting rid of it last year. It was kept mostly for sports, but by the time we let it go I couldn't argue it was worth it any more.
Game stories were mostly bare bones if they weren't entirely written by AI, to the point it wasn't hard to do a better story myself in 15 or 20 minutes from a box score and a quote sheet. Our state — one that has been a good proving ground for several national AP writers — rarely got previews or features unless the teams were in the top 25 at least. It was an obviously declining and expensive product.
And then on top of it, we just didn't need it to fill in the gaps quite as much. We cut a few days of print, which heavily skewed our content toward local coverage. Instead of needing 35-40 stories a week to fill seven editions, the 12-15 stories I write myself was enough for three editions. The news side almost never used it because all of their copy was local. Estimates of our AP contract ranged from a couple thousand dollars to well into five figures, so it became throwing money down a hole for something we weren't using.
It's a shame, but I also understand the business decision we had to make.

 

[daytonadan1983]

Stringing for AP back in the day was both consistent and glorious. Did Michael Jordan playing baseball when Birmingham played Orlando and Jacksonville. Good times.

 

[I Should Coco]

We, a small local paper, held on to our AP service a few years longer than we probably should have. We negotiated some deals to stay in with differing levels of service, before finally getting rid of it last year. It was kept mostly for sports, but by the time we let it go I couldn't argue it was worth it any more.
Game stories were mostly bare bones if they weren't entirely written by AI, to the point it wasn't hard to do a better story myself in 15 or 20 minutes from a box score and a quote sheet. Our state — one that has been a good proving ground for several national AP writers — rarely got previews or features unless the teams were in the top 25 at least. It was an obviously declining and expensive product.
And then on top of it, we just didn't need it to fill in the gaps quite as much. We cut a few days of print, which heavily skewed our content toward local coverage. Instead of needing 35-40 stories a week to fill seven editions, the 12-15 stories I write myself was enough for three editions. The news side almost never used it because all of their copy was local. Estimates of our AP contract ranged from a couple thousand dollars to well into five figures, so it became throwing money down a hole for something we weren't using.
It's a shame, but I also understand the business decision we had to make.

I can see the declining need for AP in print as you publish only three times a week. But what about online?

Our shop’s website has an automated feed with nation and world stories from AP, and if something big enough happens we can put an AP story in a featured position. Not that online readers can’t find those stories elsewhere, but maybe we have some who click our website AP links.

 

[Batman]

I can see the declining need for AP in print as you publish only three times a week. But what about online?

Our shop’s website has an automated feed with nation and world stories from AP, and if something big enough happens we can put an AP story in a featured position. Not that online readers can’t find those stories elsewhere, but maybe we have some who click our website AP links.

A steady automated feed would be nice, and maybe it might generate some extra random clicks or I'm being naive, but I don't think it's necessary for the identity I've tried to give our sports section or what our news focus is. As a staff we typically generate enough local content each day to keep a steady flow going, or at least that's the goal, and that's the niche we try to fill.
The AP declined so much that we weren't getting anything of value from it on the state level where it could really help us and be of interest to most of our readers.
If there's a really big state or national story, we can do some good aggregation — citing and linking sources, pulling the right quotes from press conferences and releases, adding a splash of relevant knowledge — and throw it on the site. It takes some time and effort, which is a drag, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than what we were paying for AP.