I read with amusement that reporters and photographers for the Associated Press are staging (via the Newspaper Guild) a ‘byline strike.’ Say what? To stage a such a strike people have to have heard of you, but practically no one is more anonymous than a writer for a news service. It almost comes with the job description. You are the “Associated Press,” not yourself. The AP is not exactly where you find the next Norman Mailer. News service reporters are not even as well known as bloggers. I mean whose names are more famous to the general public at his point - Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin and (yikes) Markos Moulitsas or [insert any Associated Press writer here]?
Not that I don’t have some sympathy for my AP colleagues. These are trying times for all in the media. But they made a choice by joining a news service and that choice was for a form of literary facelessness. Also, they opted for a form of homogenization, since the AP and other news services are by mission supposed to be uniform in style and content.
And therein lies the rub. Of recent years the uniformity of the Associated Press in publishing a kind of bland, accepted liberalism of the most uninspired (and sometimes distorted) sort may be the root of their business woes – not the presence (or not) of bylines or even the current economic situation, although the latter certainly plays a part. I would suggest to the writers and owners of the AP that they consider opening up their company to people of different biases and opinions. They are supposed to be a news service, after all, not a ideological distribution center. People on the more extreme right love to compare them to Tass. That’s not fair. The AP is nowhere near as bad as that. But they are pretty bad. And they are failing economically. And when you’re failing economically, you’re supposed to do something. [Maybe they're waiting for a TARP bailout.-ed. I'd rather drive a Buick.]
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23 Comments
1. AnninCA:AP has been responsible for a ton of extremely opinionated stories for at least 2 years. I have absolutely no interest any longer in even reading them.
The minute I see the source, I skip the story.
Dec 16, 2008 - 10:35 am 2. Perry Stroyka:“They are supposed to be a news service, after all, not a ideological distribution center.”
Not just an ideological distribution center, but a clearing house for the re-processed gruel they serve.
Dec 16, 2008 - 11:44 am 3. Perry Stroyka:And another thing [OT, of course]- how many permutations of the words “depression”, or “great depression” have we heard since just before and after the election? I think ubamas has the lead here, but its quite a horse race to see who and how many times the equation “a + b = depression”, or “P + K = Great Depresssion”, or the ubiquitous “Melting ice near Greenland shown in this picture is the result of global warming…” can be restated and dramatized.
My apologies, truely off topic indeed. Just shut up and go back to eating yur slop, there’s a depression on”.
Dec 16, 2008 - 11:55 am 4. ManosTheHandsOfFate:Slightly OT: Regarding Detroit’s newspapers changing their home delivery, linked on Drudge, the article states that the papers will beef up their online editions, as readers more and more are getting their news from the internet. What these brainiacs don’t realize is: if we dont’t read the hardcopy trash, what makes them think that we’ll read their online trash? “Free” online access has nothing to do with it. We are inundated with left-wing bias from the moment we wake up till the moment we go to sleep. In innumerable ways and venues. Hell, it’s in the figging air. These MSM’rs really have no clue.
Dec 16, 2008 - 6:26 pm 5. mason:This is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in weeks and there have been some lulus. How much more anonymity can these folks achieve? Ghost writers are better known than these folks, even the one that wrote Hillary’s books. I was kind of discouraged today but this lifts the blues. Thank you AP staff!
Dec 16, 2008 - 6:54 pm 6. Alex Bensky:Well, perhaps the writers are a bit embarrassed to have their names associated with their output. I’d be.
Dec 16, 2008 - 6:55 pm 7. BlogDog:Given the state of newspapers today, the AP “journalists” should be forming a “Bye!” line.
Dec 16, 2008 - 6:57 pm 8. Moptop:Contrasting AP headlines from Newsbusters:
“Obama: Probe shows no contact in Illinois gov scandal.”
Dec 16, 2008 - 7:08 pm 9. RR Ryan:“Palin Pre-Empts State Report, Clears Self in Probe.”
I honestly don’t understand what is going on here. Are they refusing to write, or just submitting copy without a name attached. It probably doesn’t make any difference, as writers of this caliber are not difficult to replace. Raid a high school annual staff or two. It would be nice to know how this is supposed to work, though.
Dec 16, 2008 - 7:10 pm 10. DonK:As a former AP person (broadcast news/sports/online) who left in the mid-1990s, I can say that the wire service that’s there today bears scant resemblance to the one I left.
Much of this is a legacy of the Internet boom. When Net news sites began heating up in the mid-1990s, they started hiring from other media. The whole sequence triggered a mass departure of experienced people from the AP — people, like myself, who revered the “just the facts” approach to news coverage.
There are still some of those people around (many are friends of mine), but a lot of them (especially in NYC and DC) have been replaced by younger, much more liberal people who don’t have the same view of news coverage (or the same politics).
In addition, the new management that took over earlier in the decade has tried to get away from the traditional AP story and put some snark into their coverage. Providing the facts (and some unbiased perspective) was/is no longer enough.
The AP, always a newspaper-heavy organization (broadcast is a second-class citizen) was also very late to the ‘Net and lost some business there. It has lost pieces of its business to rivals, and is starting to lose bigger chunks as papers start to find they can make do with more specialized (i.e. cheaper) services.
I used to be able to read an AP story and I couldn’t tell what the writer’s politics might be. Not any more. That’s sad. But the wounds are being self-inflicted.
Dec 16, 2008 - 7:18 pm 11. JJM:The AP is partially responsible for local newspapers’ decline – the locals shouldn’t just reprint the AP stuff – they should have a “counterpoint” run with every AP article conduited (just verbed a noun) by them. They’d be increasing their readership!
Dec 16, 2008 - 7:25 pm 12. Roger L Simon:Thanks, DonK for that insider view, which confirms my outsider view, alas.
Dec 16, 2008 - 7:26 pm 13. glenn:Sounds to me like there are a lot of folks at AP who are really full of themselves. Oh well.
Dec 16, 2008 - 9:22 pm 14. AP Photogs and Journos Withholding Bylines; World Somehow Survives | Business Opportuinty Buzz And Web News:[...] anyone really care?
Dec 16, 2008 - 10:20 pm 15. AP Photogs and Journos Withholding Bylines; World Somehow Survives | Got Access News:[...] anyone really care?
Dec 16, 2008 - 10:22 pm 16. Ken Hahn:They are as bad as TASS, it’s just that their masters are a bit less brutal.
Dec 16, 2008 - 10:32 pm 17. Fat Man:An even better idea: why don’t they go on a real strike strike — and plague us no more.
Dec 16, 2008 - 10:39 pm 18. ManosTheHandsOfFate:Now we’ll have anonymous writers citing anonymous sources. Fitting.
Dec 16, 2008 - 10:42 pm 19. AP Photogs and Journos Withholding Bylines; World Somehow Survives | Latest Technology News - Business News And Expert Advice:[...] anyone really care?
Dec 16, 2008 - 11:32 pm 20. lipstick on my pig:Most strikes are ultimately self-destructive, either helping destroy the industry that pays the wages or losing money personally that any hard-won wage rise will never make up. But in AP’s case, maybe it will turn out to be a strike that runs and runs and runs… not sure anyone will worry about how it works itself out.
I used to work in newspapers and can testify that not all journalists are bright enough for the task, though that may explain why union membership is so high. If it isn’t an ideological cause that makes them join, it must be the need to protect themselves in case management ever asks why such-and-such thinks they can write.
Dec 17, 2008 - 5:11 am 21. TomJW:The Associated (with Terrorists) Press is biased? Who Knew?
Always enjoyable to read, on a blog, of another newspaper dropping the service.
Dec 17, 2008 - 6:46 am 22. tim maguire:And when you’re failing economically, you’re supposed to do something.
But a strike is probably not that something. Although, like some others here, I’m unclear on what a by-line strike is.
Dec 17, 2008 - 12:49 pm 23. John:So there’s a strike at the “deeply unpopular” Associated Press, who can’t meet staff wage demands.
I guess all that talking down of the economy before the election isn’t working out so great, after all.
Dec 17, 2008 - 12:51 pm