“Eight sows and bores”. Say that fast and you can come up with eight thousand bores.
There were days when I became very frustrated with AP. Editors/writers at their hubs looked down upon those of us who were at local radio stations. Many years ago while I was working for K-T-T-N, Trenton, MO (500 watts, daytime station at 1600), there was a story about an incident involving a Des Moines family overcome by carbon monoxide while their car was parked at a roadside park in Mercer County, Missouri. I knew the facts because I had gotten them. The AP story was based upon information from a local stringer who was elderly and was known to confuse things. The story as sent by AP had the wrong location for the incident. The roadside park was south of Princeton, MO, not north. There were several other errors in the story as transmitted. I called the AP in Kansas City and asked that the errors be corrected. I was met with an air of superiority -- how dare I question the AP? I recall that I gave the correct information, and eventually a corrected story was transmitted. It was a small victory for a small town, small station reporter.
Financially, this may make sense. Editorially, it's a major error in judgement. Your analysis is spot on about the mutual loss to both smaller media and to the Register. I read AP every morning online. But I saw your post before I read the wire service today. Thanks for the boars and sows anecdote.
Does this mean that the Gazette could benefit from increased readership? Or perhaps other Iowa online news outlets will find increased readership, like Bleeding Heartland or Iowa Capital Dispatch? In my years when I had a job that the media covered, I was never misquoted by AP--once or twice, I remember Glover helped me condense my rants into 7 second quotes.
My father didn't like dogs, so when we heard whining and discovered a dog trapped in a storm sewer near our house, he was ready to move on to work as a self employed carpenter, muttering, "stupid dog." I worked for my Dad as a teenager but talked him into letting me stay and try to rescue the dog. I couldn't reach the dog through the grate but a neighbor had a pipe spreader that made the bars on the grate wide enough for me to get down and rescue the dog. The dog belonged to a local Standard Oil gas station manager and the dog was named Permalube. Our local paper, the Sioux Rapids Bulletin Press, ran the story and simply said the dog was rescued on the Al Schilling property. The Sioux City Journal picked up the story and had my father as the person who rescued the dog. KITV news was sponsored in part by Standard Oil and was happy to do a story on the rescue of a dog named Permalube and had my father rescuing the dog at some risk of life and limb. To my father's great annoyance, people kept congratulating him for his rescue for about a week.
Why does learning about this news make me think its another step into the MAGA world of misinformation and disinformation. Off the cuff, I don't have as much confidence in a "vast" network of reporters as I would have with Associated Press. Did AP make mistakes? No doubt. But not nearly as many as what seems in store for future Gannett readers.
Thanks Dave. I would never have been a good journalist. I omitted context and patience. One should wait to see how it plays out. Also, we still subscribe to the DMR, adding an online subscription to the Gazette
Great piece, Dave. Your concluding (funny) story...LOL!
Makes me worry about people (us) in Iowa continually becoming more insulated and isolated from real news.
“Eight sows and bores”. Say that fast and you can come up with eight thousand bores.
There were days when I became very frustrated with AP. Editors/writers at their hubs looked down upon those of us who were at local radio stations. Many years ago while I was working for K-T-T-N, Trenton, MO (500 watts, daytime station at 1600), there was a story about an incident involving a Des Moines family overcome by carbon monoxide while their car was parked at a roadside park in Mercer County, Missouri. I knew the facts because I had gotten them. The AP story was based upon information from a local stringer who was elderly and was known to confuse things. The story as sent by AP had the wrong location for the incident. The roadside park was south of Princeton, MO, not north. There were several other errors in the story as transmitted. I called the AP in Kansas City and asked that the errors be corrected. I was met with an air of superiority -- how dare I question the AP? I recall that I gave the correct information, and eventually a corrected story was transmitted. It was a small victory for a small town, small station reporter.
Financially, this may make sense. Editorially, it's a major error in judgement. Your analysis is spot on about the mutual loss to both smaller media and to the Register. I read AP every morning online. But I saw your post before I read the wire service today. Thanks for the boars and sows anecdote.
Great opinion piece, Dave. I read the AP site every morning and have learned to access numerous news sites online everyday to get a balanced view.
I am sad Gannett is dropping the AP.
👍Should be an interesting next year of studying the impact on various media?!
Dave always bores into the details and consequences of decisions like these, and never bores us while doing so.
Speaking as a former Gannett editor - ZERO will be invested in additional local reporting.
This is just more bloodsucking of a dying corpse to wring as much shareholder value out before the inevitable final collapse.
Frankly, I wish death would come faster and starve these vultures.
Does this mean that the Gazette could benefit from increased readership? Or perhaps other Iowa online news outlets will find increased readership, like Bleeding Heartland or Iowa Capital Dispatch? In my years when I had a job that the media covered, I was never misquoted by AP--once or twice, I remember Glover helped me condense my rants into 7 second quotes.
Thanks for the laugh! "...eight SOWS and boars!”) " :)
Dropping AP is a horrible mistake. There's no way to measure just how deeply this will impact us all.
Fascinating, including the comments.
My father didn't like dogs, so when we heard whining and discovered a dog trapped in a storm sewer near our house, he was ready to move on to work as a self employed carpenter, muttering, "stupid dog." I worked for my Dad as a teenager but talked him into letting me stay and try to rescue the dog. I couldn't reach the dog through the grate but a neighbor had a pipe spreader that made the bars on the grate wide enough for me to get down and rescue the dog. The dog belonged to a local Standard Oil gas station manager and the dog was named Permalube. Our local paper, the Sioux Rapids Bulletin Press, ran the story and simply said the dog was rescued on the Al Schilling property. The Sioux City Journal picked up the story and had my father as the person who rescued the dog. KITV news was sponsored in part by Standard Oil and was happy to do a story on the rescue of a dog named Permalube and had my father rescuing the dog at some risk of life and limb. To my father's great annoyance, people kept congratulating him for his rescue for about a week.
Why does learning about this news make me think its another step into the MAGA world of misinformation and disinformation. Off the cuff, I don't have as much confidence in a "vast" network of reporters as I would have with Associated Press. Did AP make mistakes? No doubt. But not nearly as many as what seems in store for future Gannett readers.
Thanks Dave. I would never have been a good journalist. I omitted context and patience. One should wait to see how it plays out. Also, we still subscribe to the DMR, adding an online subscription to the Gazette