There’s a bit more nuance to the news that Gannett is dropping The Associated Press — nuance that wasn’t included in Ben Mullin’s initial tweets or in a follow-up story at The Wrap. New York Times media reporters Mullin and Katie Robertson now report that Gannett will use Reuters for international news and that it will continue to use the AP for election data. The McClatchy newspaper chain is cutting back on its use of AP journalism as well.
Credit where it’s due: Sophie Culpepper of Nieman Lab appears to have been the first to report that Gannett will use Reuters.
Three observations:
The news is not as bad as it first appeared. Reuters is a world-class news organization, and the AP is the gold standard for election returns.
You have to wonder what this will mean for the AP. Gannett publishes about 200 daily papers, anchored by USA Today. McClatchy, which is owned by a hedge fund, publishes in 30 markets and owns major papers such as The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina; the Fort Worth Star Telegram, The Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee.
I find it odd that the initial statement from Gannett, reported by Mullin on Twitter/X, made no mention of Reuters or of Gannett’s continued use of the AP for election data. A bit of damage control perhaps?
There aren’t too many people who subscribe to more than one daily newspaper, either digital or in print. There are a few freaks like me (I pay for four). Most people, though, go with zero or one. Which is why a daily, unlike a weekly, should offer a comprehensive mix of international, national and local news. It doesn’t matter if all or most of the non-local journalism is from wire services. After all, The Associated Press, Reuters, AFP and the like are among our finest news organizations.
Gannett, though, is about to embark on a different approach. New York Times media reporter Benjamin Mullin posted on Twitter/X earlier today that our largest newspaper chain is going to drop the AP as of March 25. “This shift will give us the opportunity to redeploy more dollars … where we might have gaps,” according to a memo from chief content officer Kristin Roberts that was quoted by Mullin, who also quoted a statement from Gannett:
This decision enables us to invest further in our newsrooms and leverage our incredible USA TODAY Network of more than 200 newsrooms across the nation as well USA TODAY to reach and engage more readers, viewers and listeners.
In other words, Gannett’s 200-plus daily papers are going to be dependent on USA Today, the mothership, for anything other than local news. So how is that going to work out?
I flipped through the current e-paper version of USA Today to see what type of international and national journalism might be available. The front page features interesting stories about COVID, Black history museums and, well, the cherry blossoms in Washington. Inside are staff-written stories on transgender issues, free speech, some Trumpy content and St. Patrick’s Day violence in Florida. The business, sports and lifestyle sections are all staff-written. So far, so good.
But there was only one international story in the main body of the paper, a piece about famine in Gaza that appears on page 2. It was written by a USA Today staff writer, but it’s based mainly on a United Nations report. At the end is a tagline stating that material from the AP was incorporated into the article. It’s accompanied by an AFP photo. In other words, covering the world without AP content may prove to be mighty difficult.
The Gannett papers offer something else to their subscribers called Nation & World Extra that looks like a print product but that I’m told is available only as part of the e-paper. Here you’ll find serious stories about the war in Gaza, the Supreme Court, the migrant crisis and more, and virtually all of it is from the AP. Imagine that you’re a subscriber to The Providence Journal and no other daily paper. Perhaps you rely on Nation & World Extra. And it’s about to lose all of its AP reporting, to be replaced with — well, who knows?
In a similar vein, Gannett also offers something called Sports Extra that also mostly consists of AP news.
I don’t want to pronounce this a pending disaster until I see what it looks like in practice. USA Today is a fine paper, and there’s no reason that Gannett’s dailies can’t use USA Today stories to provide their readers with important national news. But I don’t see how they’re going to offer any international coverage without relying on a wire service, whether it’s the AP or something else.
As is usually the case with Gannett, this seems like nothing other than a money-saving move.
Update: Gannett has clarified initial reports and now says it will use Reuters for international news and the AP for election returns. In addition, the McClatchy chain is cutting back on its use of AP journalism as well.
We’re thrilled to let you know that Nieman Lab has published an excerpt from “What Works in Community News” based on Ellen Clegg’s reporting from Minneapolis on Sahan Journal, a nonprofit digital project that covers the state’s burgeoning immigrant communities. Thanks to Nieman Lab editor Laura Hazard Owen for her help in getting our work out before a wider audience.
Colorado media-watcher Corey Hutchins reports that the National Trust for Local News, a nonprofit that works to keep newspapers alive and out of the hands of corporate chain owners, has purchased a used printing press that will serve the two dozen papers it owns in the Denver suburbs as well as papers owned by other publishers. The trust bought those papers, known collectively as Colorado Community Media, back in 2021.
Ellen Clegg and I interviewed National Trust CEO and co-founder Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro and CCM publisher Linda Shapley for our book, “What Works in Community News.” They have both appeared on our podcast as well. When I met Shapley in her newsroom in the fall of 2021, she was in the midst of trying to pivot her papers to digital — but she acknowledged that print remained an important part of the mix for readers and, especially, for advertisers.
“I totally get that there are advertisers out there who don’t necessarily see digital as a way forward,” Shapley said. “But they recognize the fact that this is going to be how people find you. So I don’t see them as playing against each other but as something that can work in tandem.”
Now those papers — as well as papers owned by other publishers who’ve been hurt by the disappearance of Colorado’s printing presses — can continue to be offered in print as well as online.
Just when Gannett was making some good news for itself by going on something of a modest hiring spree, splat! Investigative reporter Steven Monacelli has found that our largest newspaper chain, with about 200 daily newspapers, is working with Advantage Informatics, a well-known purveyor of so-called pink slime news sites.
Pink slime is the name given to websites that masquerade as legitimate local news projects but that are actually produced from distant locales. The meaning has morphed over the years. What I call Pink Slime 1.0 arose about a dozen years ago in the form of sites whose writers appeared to be based in local communities but were actually some distance away — in some cases, as far away as the Philippines. Pink Slime 2.0 has an ideological cast, mainly but not exclusively on the right. Pink Slime 3.0 adds artificial intelligence to the mix.
What most of these sites have in common is Brian Timpone, a Chicago-based conservative businessperson who is the founder of something called Metric Media, a network of some 1,200 right-wing sites. These projects tend to be pretty inept; my favorite covers the imaginary community of North Boston.
The Gannett-Timpone connection was exposed last week in a major report for Nieman Lab written by Monacelli on Advantage Informatics, a Timpone venture that produces advertorial content. Monacelli found that, in years past, newspapers such as the Houston Chronicle (owned by Hearst since 1987) and The San Diego Union-Tribune (recently acquired by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital) have taken advantage of Timpone’s services. (The Chronicle told Monacelli that it has no record of such a relationship.) Gannett is the one newspaper company he found that has a current, ongoing relationship with Advantage. He writes:
A Gannett spokesperson told me that the company works with Advantage Informatics on “advertorial” content. When asked about Advantage Informatics’ relationship with the broader Metric Media network, the spokesperson said, “Ethics and our values are priority for us.”
Monacelli has written quite a tale that includes a Tennessee journalism professor who used to work for Advantage and Advantage’s ambition to offer “dedicated beat reporting” of local sports, governmental meetings and “keeping a close eye” on statehouses and Congress.
On the one hand, I’m not sure it’s that big a deal who produces advertorial content. On the other, the fact is that Gannett is working with the pink slimiest company in the country. Despite Gannett’s recent good news on the hiring front, it would hardly be surprising if company executives played around with having Advantage try its hand at community coverage as well. After all, it was just a few months ago that Gannett was caught using AI to write local sports stories, to hilarious effect.
A final note: If you’d like to learn more about pink slime, Ellen Clegg and I interviewed Pri Bengani, an expert based at Columbia University who’s quoted in Monacelli’s article, on the “What Works” podcast last fall.
In New Britain, Connecticut, a woman whose obituary said she had died on March 1 was revealed more than a week later to have been the victim of a possible murder. The woman, 71-year-old Lauren “Laurie” Gualano, a retired educator, died from blunt trauma to her “head, neck, torso and extremities, with neck compression,” Hearst Connecticut reporter Christine Dempsey wrote on March 11, citing the state medical examiner’s office, which said it was treating Gualano’s death as a homicide.
Dempsey also said on Twitter/X: “This is probably the first time in my career that a police department did not release any information about a homicide. Not even where it happened, or when.” According to her story:
New Britain police did not release any information about the homicide and did not return phone or emailed messages Monday, and in a written response to a call and text message Monday morning, [Rachel] Zaniewski [a spokeswoman for the mayor] said, “this situation is still being actively investigated, so unfortunately, I don’t have any additional updates on my end at this point.”
The city has a policy of directing the media to the mayor’s office, instead of the police or fire departments, for information about public safety matters.
This morning, Hearst reported that Gualano’s son, Nicholas Legienza, 39, was in custody and was under investigation for his possible involvement.
Under public records laws in most states, including Connecticut, the police are not required to release detailed information about a crime if that would impede their investigation. But sitting on a possible murder for more than a week and not confirming it even after the state medical examiner called the death a homicide is a violation of the public trust. For that, the New Britain Police Department has earned a New England Muzzle Award.
Larry Gennari has a review in the Boston Business Journal, writing: “Clegg and Kennedy present an impressive number of media business startup models in such places as California, Iowa, New Jersey, Minnesota and Tennessee, all centered on quality local news, which they argue enhances community, transparency and, ultimately, self-governance.”
And Dorothy Bergin, The Bedford Citizen’s 90-something copy editor, who we interviewed for the book, has featured it in her regular column, “Dot’s Reading Room.” She writes: “As the authors say, they are optimistic about the future of hyperlocal journalism. This is the spirit that has kept and still keeps The Bedford Citizen’s paid employees and volunteers from writers and reporters on the job!”
Thanks to everyone who attended our Northeastern University conference Friday on “What Works: The Future of Local News.” We’ll be posting more in the days ahead, but we wanted to begin by sharing some information from Professors Mike Beaudet and John Wihbey on the Reinventing Local TV News Project. They weren’t able to show videos, so we’re sharing them here.
Above is their “Meet the Fellows!” video, an introduction to the content producers for the third phase of their project. And here’s a piece that was published by Storybench, our School of Journalism digital publication covering media innovation. It links to links the first three underreported stories produced by project fellows in New York, Chicago and Boston.
The project’s video library is available for your perusal as well. And there are written reports for anyone who wants to dig deeper.
I’m conflicted on whether it’s a good idea for the U.S. to ban TikTok unless the Chinese government agrees to sell it. On the one hand, there are important First Amendment principles at stake. On the other, it doesn’t strike me that we’re required to allow China to direct propaganda at American users lest we somehow fall short in our dedication to freedom of expression.
That said, Mike Masnick of TechDirt has weighed in with a hot-blooded commentary arguing that banning TikTok would be a grotesquely wrong move. Here’s the heart of it:
The US has dealt with foreign propaganda for ages. And we don’t ban it. Part of free speech is that you have to deal with the fact that nonsense propaganda and disinformation exists. There are ways to deal with it and respond to it that don’t involve banning speech. It’s astounding to me how quickly people give up their principles out of a weird, xenophobic fear that somehow China has magic pixie dust hidden within TikTok to turn Americans’ brains to mush.
I’m sympathetic to Masnick’s argument and have yet to be convinced that the ban is a good idea. And I’m definitely not going to be convinced because House members have been shown secret information that the rest of us aren’t privvy to.
A final reminder about our conference on the future of local news — a free, all-day event that will be held tomorrow (March 15) at Northeastern University. We’ll have sessions on topics ranging from data visualization to university-community partnerships, as well as a book talk by Ellen Clegg and me. We hope you can attend. Registration and more information is online here.
Dempsey also 