NEW YORK (AP) — The media firm Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain and writer of USA Immediately, mentioned Tuesday it will cease utilizing journalism from The Related Press later this month, severing a century-old partnership.The choice “permits us to speculate additional in our newsrooms,” Gannett spokeswoman Lark-Marie Anton mentioned. With greater than 200 retailers, the chain represents extra newspapers than some other firm in AP’s U.S. membership. A memo from Gannett’s chief content material officer Kristin Roberts directed the chain’s editors to cease utilizing tales, movies and pictures supplied by AP on March 25. The memo, obtained by The Related Press, was first reported by The New York Occasions.“We’re shocked and disillusioned to see this memo,” mentioned Lauren Easton, spokeswoman for The Related Press. “Our conversations with Gannett have been productive and ongoing. We stay hopeful that Gannett will proceed to assist the AP past the tip of their membership time period on the finish of 2024, as they’ve completed for over a century.”
Neither firm would focus on how a lot Gannett has been paying to obtain AP content material.
In an earlier period, when charges from U.S. newspapers supplied AP with just about all of its income, such a choice would have represented a monetary earthquake for the information cooperative. However AP has diversified its companies with the decline of newspapers and U.S. newspaper charges now represent simply over 10 % of its annual earnings.
Gannett mentioned that it has signed an settlement with Reuters to supply information from world wide in a number of codecs, together with video.“Key to this initiative is guaranteeing that we prolong the attain of the work we do to extra readers, viewers and listeners nationwide,” Roberts mentioned in her memo.AP’s diversification efforts embrace providing its journalism on to customers by an advertising-supported web site. The corporate additionally supplies manufacturing companies and software program to newsrooms internationally. This week, AP launched an e-commerce website known as AP Buyline, run by the corporate Taboola, that gives product content material and evaluations for customers.
Gannett mentioned it will proceed paying for 2 of AP’s most seen companies: its intensive election-related polling and vote-counting, and the AP Stylebook that units tips for journalism practices and phrase utilization.With a contract for AP’s content material that lasts to the tip of 2024, it was not clear why Gannett is selecting to chop issues off subsequent week. Whereas there stays the chance that it represents a negotiating tactic for AP to decrease its charges, Anton mentioned she was not conscious of any contract negotiations.Like most newspaper firms, Gannett has been struggling financially for a number of years. The workforce shrank 47% between 2020 and 2023 due to layoffs and attrition, in line with the NewsGuild.