AP's Curley: We Have Come to a 'Fork in the Road'

By: E&P Staff Tom Curley, president and CEO of The Associated Press, who was honored at the annual Knight-Bagehot Dinner in New York tonight, said in his keynote address, "We -- the news industry -- have come to that fork in the road. We must take bold, decisive steps to secure the audiences and funding to support journalism?s essential role in both our economy and democracy, or find ourselves on an ugly path to obscurity ...

"The portals are running off with our best stuff, and we?re afraid or unable to make or enforce deals that drive fair value. Revenue lines in a good month are flat. In other months, they inspire the merchants of debt to imagine how they might take us over and show us how much smarter they are ...

"Our own reporters ridicule our digital transition plans as one great organization or another faces ownership changes, most notably Knight Ridder, Tribune and Dow Jones. When an experienced media operator steps up, such as Murdoch, he gets vilified."

Excerpts from the speech follow.
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The research we did in cities in the U.S. and abroad this past summer provided compelling evidence that the news is as valuable as ever -- even in an age where screen-based headlines overwhelm the senses and the next update is never more than a mouse click away.

Young people the world over are hungry for news. They just don?t prefer our traditional platforms and packaging.

The irony of the disrupted news economy of the 21st century is that the news is hot, but the news business is not ...

I?ve been inside many major news organizations the last couple years, and, invariably, I hear the same refrain. We know what to do, but we can?t get it done. Or, sadly, we?re in worse shape than we were two years ago because we?re spending even more proportionately trying to keep the old model functioning. More than a few persist in trying to make their online sites life rafts for newspapers or newscasts.

So, a few more things might have to change. The pressures on the bosses will have to build. Many more of us in leadership positions must step up and say, now.

The first thing that has to go is the attitude. Our institutional arrogance has done more to harm us than any portal ...

There?s still a place for appointment media -- a home-delivered newspaper on the porch each morning or an evening newscast while making dinner. But it is a smaller place. People, of course, want the news when they want it. Even more difficult to accept, they want control over what they get.

Think of it this way. The perfect paper or newscast is becoming possible -- at least in the reader?s or viewer?s eyes. What is it you really want to know? We can personalize content now ...

Our focus must be on becoming the very best at filling people?s 24-hour news needs. That?s a huge shift from the we-know-best, gatekeeper thinking. Sourcing, fact-gathering, researching, storytelling, editing, packaging aren?t going away. These professional skills still should command premium wages. But the readers and viewers are demanding to captain their information ships. Let them.

Next to go must be despair. We begin by getting our heads around the most important fact of all: We work in a growth industry. The woe-is-us over the decline in appointment media obscures terrific opportunities.

More people are accessing news more frequently than ever before the world over. All media platforms -- video, audio, digital and even text -- are seeing growth ...

The adjustment we?re being asked to make is to a world of increased access, new competition and different business models. It?s not about easing onto the obit page.

The journey to the next generation news begins with us believing in ourselves and what we do. In 273 years since John Peter Zenger was jailed, nothing has been invented to take the place of what reporters and committed news organizations do. Above all, it is about speaking truth to power when power most needs to be told.

We have the power to control how our content flows on the Web. We must use that power if we?re to continue to be financially secure and independent enough to speak truth to power.

Third, while the thrust of my remarks is about content, we need money, serious money to pay for great reporters as well as hire a few lawyers to keep our Zengers out of jail.

We must change how we charge for content. In the financial marketplace, hot news is the most valuable of all. Hedge funds pay premiums, add spiders and link to trading programs. One-size-fits-all on the business side has to evolve. Tiered pricing with premiums for timeliness or comprehensiveness is one option ...

We also must speed up our clock to real time. When I started, in the sixties, the news cycle was 12 hours. Today, it?s three hours ?- about the time it takes for a significant percentage of the people interested in a story to have encountered the story or the news they need. Yet, newspapers and newscasts run with lead stories of marginal interest that are 20-plus hours old ...

Finally, and, most important, editors need to stop pining for the old world and intensify the leading to the new ...

We are approaching an amazing point in the history of media. Quality will rule. With traffic to destination websites flattening and new distribution making all content accessible, we?re entering a new era of brutal competition. The best will stand out because they will be sought out. Newsrooms need to be reorganized around new content needs ...

As part of that transformation, AP will be making sweeping changes in its own news organization to move more news out of our bureaus faster for online and mobile consumption and then enhance it for print and broadcast. We intend to use valuable resources that once were needed to file telegraph-style wires in every state and redeploy those jobs for real journalism. Similar changes already have been made in our international operation with significant results ...

If we make the right moves, or even some of them, we have tremendous opportunities to grow -- at AP and all our organizations. The new power users of news around the world have unprecedented access and appetites for information. The challenge for all of us is to build the kind of content powers that can flood the new zones of consumption and thrive both financially and journalistically.

In the broad arc of media history, it?s a very big moment. I hope you?re all as excited as I am to be a part of it. And ready to step up to the decisions.