04/03/2006

AP president says news cooperative responding to demands of digital age with more content


By TARA BURGHART
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO (AP) - The Associated Press is responding to the demands of the digital era for additional content by introducing news video for the Web, a multimedia young readers' service, more sports and financial information, expanded choice in photos, and new formats like blogs and podcasts, Tom Curley, AP's president and CEO, said Monday.

"We know the digital era requires more content, not less," Curley told executives representing AP member newspapers and broadcast companies at the cooperative's annual meeting. "And it requires content edited and packaged in ways that help user access and allow for advertising placement."

Immediately following Curley's speech, the attendees heard four AP reporters from around the world discuss one of the most pressing issues of our era, the growing demand for and cost of oil, and the strains that puts on both producing and consuming nations."

The presentation was moderated by Kathleen Carroll, AP's executive editor, and included Ed Harris, who is based in West Africa, Robert Tanner, based in New York, Chelsea Carter, based in Los Angeles, and Elaine Kurtenbach, who spoke by satellite from China.

Harris discussed how impoverished residents of countries like Nigeria _ which accounts for 15 percent of American oil imports _ fail to benefit from their nations' coveted natural resource.

He said 10,000 people have died and 3 million been left homeless in strife since the end of military rule in Nigeria in 1999.

"You can mostly forget ethnic or religious differences," Harris said. "The competition for a bigger share of the oil proceeds is behind much of the fighting."

Kurtenbach said China's consumption of crude oil has more than tripled in the past 10 years. For now, each of its 1.3 billion citizens consumes less than 10 percent of the energy used by an average American.

"But as their living standards rise, they'll surely use more and more," she said. Already, she said, China is promoting ties with major oil and gas exporters around the world, seeking greater pipeline and port access and offering incentives for foreign oil refiners.

Tanner discussed how U.S. institutions are failing to respond with sufficient urgency to the energy challenge, pointing out that the United States consumes a quarter of the 80 million barrels of oil burned worldwide each day.

"There are reasons to worry that the dangers just ahead could make the 1970s look like a hiccup," Tanner said. "The oil market is tighter. Political instability among producers is high. And most dangerously, a growing chorus of geologists and analysts warn that the world is about to reach a critical turning point, when we'll hit the global peak of oil production."

The result, he said, will be higher prices. Pessimists predict panic, volatile markets, perhaps even wars over the oil that is left, Tanner said, while optimists believe that modern technology will provide alternative energy sources.

Carter then painted a portrait of a possible future in which the oil supply no longer meets demand and American families struggle with soaring costs for utilities, commuting and basic needs. Prices for homes in distant suburbs could plummet, an airplane ticket could be out of the reach of many, and the entire situation could threaten "to swallow the great middle class."

The AP gathering was held on the opening day of the annual convention of the Newspaper Association of America. At the AP luncheon following the meeting, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., spoke about energy policy and climate change.

He said the government should provide tax breaks and loan guarantees to show the way toward greater use of environmentally friendlier energy sources.

"As gas prices keep rising, the Middle East grows more unstable and the ice caps continue to melt, we now face a now-or-never, once-in-a-generation opportunity to set this country on a different course," Obama said.

AP Chairman Burl Osborne told the gathering the AP board of directors over the weekend agreed to begin a project aimed at determining how newspapers can better strengthen relationships with readers and advertisers in a digital world.

The newspaper industry, he said, needs to write "new rules of the road to preserve our businesses and to dispel the gloom we see and hear around us."

"The facts are that newspapers ... are very good businesses. They have profit margins that most other businesses would kill to attain," Osborne said. "The facts are that newspapers are by far the deepest, most thorough and most credible sources of news and information. The facts are that newspapers are the one indispensable town hall forum where citizens can find the facts they need to have in common in order to fulfill their own roles as citizens in a democracy such as ours."

He also said the board was committed to keeping the rate increase for basic AP service in 2007 as low as possible. He noted that the 2006 increase was the lowest in three decades, and said "if we stay on course, the 2007 increase we will ask for basic AP service will be lower than that, if there is an increase at all."

Curley said the year 2005 was "epic for media. Whether it involved covering natural disasters of unprecedented scope or confronting the sudden economic uncertainty that our industry has faced, we were tested on every front."

Curley reviewed the AP's progress in restructuring international bureaus and creating new global editing desks to improve its reporting of events around the world.

"The cutbacks in international coverage by nearly all large news organizations have placed more of the responsibility for global coverage with us. We take that responsibility very seriously," he said.

He noted the AP lost three people associated with its coverage of the war in Iraq. Twenty-five AP staffers were detained in nine countries, and 29 were harassed, beaten or abused in 13 countries.

"Closer to home, our reporters and your reporters are joined in an increasingly challenging battle to get access to information and to stay out of jail," he said. "While this battle is always worth fighting, we believe there is new urgency to explain why First Amendment freedoms are the cornerstone of our democratic process even in an era of global terrorism and economic uncertainty."

Curley, who focused much of his speech on the opportunities and challenges presented by new technology, showed an example of the AP Online Video Network, which debuted last month. It allows the news cooperative's member Web sites to offer free video news clips and share in advertising revenue generated from the service.

Later this year, AP members will be able to post video created by their own staff and keep the resulting revenue, Curley said.

He said nearly 300 newspapers are subscribing to the AP's "boldest content initiative," the multimedia service called asap aimed at young readers that was launched last fall. AP reporters at the Turin Olympics produced blogs and podcasts, while the cooperative is enhancing both its online and print offerings in sports and financial news, and moving 20 percent more photos a day, mostly in the areas of sports and entertainment, he said.

The AP is striving to ensure its stories, photos and other products are used properly by search engines and other digital news distributors, he said. Meanwhile, for the cooperative's members, the company is focused on transitioning from satellite delivery to database access and making content available and searchable over the Internet.

"All of these content initiatives have come from redeploying existing staff," he said. "But, ultimately, The Associated Press is about credibility. Being first and delivering accurate coverage are paramount to building and retaining audiences in this competitive era."
Also at the meeting, Osborne announced that five incumbents and two new members had been elected to the news cooperative's board.

Re-elected to three-year terms were Walter E. Hussman Jr., publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Douglas McCorkindale, chairman of Gannett Co. Inc.; R. John Mitchell, publisher of the Rutland (Vt.) Herald; Gary Pruitt, chairman, president and CEO of McClatchy Co.; and Jay R. Smith, president of Cox Newspapers Inc.

The new members are Kenneth W. Lowe, president and CEO of E.W. Scripps Co., and Jon K. Rust, publisher of the Southeast Missourian and co-president of Rust Communications.
Two members have retired – Robert C. Woodworth, president and CEO of Pulitzer Inc., and Lissa Walls Vahldiek, chief operating officer of Southern Newspapers Inc. Vahldiek was vice chairman of the AP board.

Re-appointed to three-year terms were David Westin, president of ABC News, and Bruce T. Reese, president and CEO of Salt Lake City-based Bonneville International Corp., both representing the broadcast industry.

The Associated Press is a not-for-profit cooperative of U.S. newspapers and broadcasters, a global network providing coverage of news, sports, business, entertainment, politics and technology in all media formats to some 15,000 news outlets in more than 120 nations, reaching more than 1 billion people a day.