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CNN courts US newspapers

Agence France-Presse | 12/07/2008 10:34 AM

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WASHINGTON - Cable News Network (CNN), the US television news giant, is seeking to expand its reach, courting US newspapers struggling to cut costs and survive in the digital age.

The 24-hour TV news network is not strictly pitching news video, however, for newspaper websites, but a text service called CNN Wire featuring print stories from CNN contributors around the world.

CNN Wire would be the first major entrant into a field dominated by the US news agency the Associated Press (AP), Reuters -- now owned by Canada's Thomson Corp. -- and Agence France-Presse (AFP), since an out-of-work equity trader named Michael Bloomberg launched a financial news wire more than two decades ago.

To unveil its plans, CNN invited editors of over 30 US newspapers to its futuristic headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, last week to attend a three-day all-expenses paid event billed as the "CNN Newspaper Summit."

The cable TV giant's move comes at a time when many US newspapers, grappling with falling circulation, a loss of readership to online media, and a steep decline in print advertising revenue, are questioning their very survival.

It also comes as many of those same newspapers question their relationship with the AP, a 162-year-old non-profit cooperative owned by some 1,500 daily US newspapers.

The AP has long been seen as indispensable to editors seeking to fill their pages and has had scant competition in the US domestic market since the decline of the other major US news agency United Press International (UPI).

But the AP has been facing unrest recently among cash-strapped newspapers and more than 100 have threatened to terminate their contracts, including the Tribune Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other papers.

Participants in the newspaper summit said CNN insisted repeatedly that it was not seeking to compete with the AP.

Jack McElroy, editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel of Tennessee, was one of the "30-40 newspaper types" he said attended the Atlanta meeting.

"Knowing that newspapers are searching for ways to cut costs, the network has decided to tune up its wire and make it available to the ink-on-newsprint world at a discount price," McElroy wrote on his blog.

"The idea is intriguing," he added. "After salaries, 'news services' is the biggest category in my newsroom budget, by far. The bulk of that goes to The Associated Press."

McElroy speculated that the cost-savings from dropping the AP could allow his paper to pick up the CNN Wire, a major photo service, several other news services "plus at least five more reporters."

Rex Rhoades, executive editor of the Sun Journal in Lewiston, Maine, is thinking along similar lines.

"I would see (CNN Wire) as an interesting component of a package of services that could replace AP for us," Rhoades told the industry trade journal Editor and Publisher.

Roger Plothow, editor and publisher of The Post Register in Idaho Falls, Idaho, told E&P the Atlanta meeting was "quite encouraging" although CNN "didn't have a completely developed proposal."

The New York-based AP, for its part, responded to the CNN Newspaper Summit with a statement saying it would welcome the competition.

"We understand that the current economic challenges mean newspapers are examining all alternatives," said Tom Brettingen, AP's senior vice president, sales and marketing, and chief revenue officer.

"Competition is a healthy thing, and AP welcomes it."