04/29/2010


AP Press Release


Remarks by Dean Singleton
Chairman/The Associated Press
AP Annual Meeting
New York
April 29, 2010

Welcome to the annual meeting of The Associated Press. Hello to all members out there who are attending by webcast.

This is the first time an AP annual meeting has been held at our New York headquarters. It is appropriate in many ways that we are doing so, not least because we are gathering right where so much innovative work for the industry is going on.

Last year, at our meeting in San Diego, you may recall that I stood up and told the membership that I was mad – mad as hell, in fact – about the uncompensated use of our news content on the Internet. Today, I want to let you know how optimistic I am that we soon may have the tools and business models in place to address these concerns.

I’d say “I’m pleased as punch” – but I worry I might get quoted.

Let me try to tell you, from the chairman’s perspective, why I’m so pleased.

It really comes down to this: For the first time in the Internet era, we have a full set of solutions at hand for creating new value for our customers.

When I joined the AP board before the turn of the 21st century, the only real solution the cooperative had for exploiting new opportunity on the Internet was to license its news feeds to more websites. That generated needed revenue, but it didn’t change the game.

Ten years later, we stand on the threshold of a new era of news delivery where we can meet our customers wherever and however they want to consume news. We have always needed a centralized digital infrastructure to make that happen, and we are in sight of that goal here in April 2010.

The AP, in the last five years, has laid the foundation for a new way of doing business in the digital marketplace, and you’ve experienced the benefits as a customer with more and easier access to AP content across all media types.

But that was only part of the vision.

That infrastructure, over the past two years, has been extended for member use, and you’ve seen benefits already with shared exchanges of content, standardized industry metadata and new aggregated products like AP Mobile.

This year will bring the News Registry, for tracking and protection of our content across the Internet, and the Gateway, for new distribution and monetization. These projects will enable us all to extend our businesses well beyond our own websites, indeed well beyond our own geographic territories.

In the year since my Howard Beale moment, the Cooperative has become focused, organized and determined in our effort to assert the value of our news content in the new digital landscape. We are allied as never before.

Today, we take yet another important step.

The AP Board of Directors voted today to direct The Associated Press to immediately begin to pursue an expanded range of digital initiatives for content providers to create new consumer experiences for the growing array of digital outlets. Among other things, this means AP will work on our behalf to negotiate with content distributors and represent us aggressively with search engines and social engines. AP will also develop shared services and capabilities that benefit the entire industry.

So, that’s why I’m excited. Excited as hell, as a matter of fact.

Within the year, we will be in position, as an industry, to play on any device and build audiences with our own tools and new products. That’s the new day we’ve been working toward.

All it takes now is a commitment to participate in the opportunities the cooperative is making possible.

Tom will talk more about it, but before he does, I have some other important business to attend to. I want to let you know about the changes to the AP Board of Directors. Two directors will be retiring from our board, after serving nine-year terms:

Bo Jones, vice chairman of the Washington Post Co., and Graham Woodlief, who also recently retired as vice president of Media General Inc., in Richmond, Va. Bo and Graham: We appreciate your contributions over the years, and we will miss you. Please join me in thanking them for their service.

The election inspectors have certified that we had a quorum by the election deadline, and through the votes and proxies we have re-elected four directors and elected two new directors. The re-elected directors are:

Robert Jack Fishman, president and CEO of Lakeway Publishers Inc., and publisher-editor of the Citizen Tribune in Morristown, Tenn.;

Mary E. Junck, chairman, president and CEO of Lee Enterprises Inc.;

Steven O. Newhouse, chairman of Advance.Net and editor-in-chief of The Jersey Journal in Jersey City, N.J.; and,

Charles V. Pittman, senior vice president-newspapers at Schurz Communications Inc., in South Bend, Ind.

The new members, elected to three-year terms, are:

Michael Golden, vice chairman of The New York Times Co. and president and chief operating officer for The New York Times Regional Media Group, and

Katharine Weymouth, CEO of Washington Post Media and publisher of The Washington Post.
Michael and Katharine are both with us today. Welcome to the board, and fasten your seatbelts.

I also want to tell you today about some important changes in AP’s leadership structure.
Tom Brettingen, long an important and respected figure in our world, has decided to retire because he prefers golf to the newspaper business. Imagine that! This will be Tom’s last board meeting, so let’s give him a show of appreciation for his many years of dedication to AP.

Tom is succeeded by Jane Seagrave, whom he brought back to AP after several years’ absence. Jane has done additional restructuring and has named Daisy Veerasingham and Sue Cross to head business development and partner relations across the world. This new AP management team is exciting and diverse.

Last year was yet another year of financial turmoil and deepening challenges to our industry. But it did make clear, once and for all, that new tools, products and business models are needed to empower today’s consumers and to return revenue to those who work and spend to gather the news that they use.

AP’s work this past year, building on previous years, puts into place the pieces that create a moment of great opportunity for all of us. In effect, we have the chance to transform the Cooperative into a revenue-generating engine that would benefit us all. It would put control of our content back into our hands, and allow us to deliver more timely, relevant and compelling experiences directly to the consumer.

Our Cooperative, with its huge collective audience and its wealth of feet on the ground gathering news, could be at the center of a strategy that shifts the economic balance back to where it belongs – to the people and the companies who produce the authoritative news the world wants and needs.

In a few minutes, Tom will tell you more about the News Registry, which is on the verge of a large-scale rollout. He’ll also tell you more about AP Gateway, the new strategic business unit that will be developing products and services aimed directly at the burgeoning market for personalized, portable media experiences. He’ll also fill you in on some of the first products and services coming out of Gateway – and offering AP members an opportunity to share and benefit from the initiative.

I also want to remind you today of the other value AP brings members of the Cooperative.
It remains your frontline in a world of continually breaking news. As Afghanistan has heated up, it’s important to remember that AP is the only organization to have had a full-time, multiformat bureau operating there before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Last year one of AP’s photographers, Emilio Morenatti, lost his lower left leg from roadside bomb in Afghanistan. I’m happy to tell you that Emilio is once again jogging, on a new prosthetic leg, and has just been posted to Spain. His photos are already on the wire.

In Haiti, when the 7.0 earthquake hit in January, killing and burying alive hundreds of thousands, the first details came from AP’s Jon Katz, the only American correspondent based there. You’ll be hearing from Jon a bit later, in the news program.

It was AP that consistently broke the biggest developments in the incredulous tale of South Carolina’s philandering governor. And don’t forget AP’s legacy of unparalleled election coverage. Last year, they continued their winning streak, calling the game-changing vote in the Massachusetts Senate election before anyone else. And, of course, when AP calls it, you know you can run with it.

Last year AP journalists dived deep into stories that impact you directly, analyzing data and crunching numbers on the issues in your own back yards. Our economic stress index, for example, let your readers look into their own neighborhoods for details on the impact of the recession. Database investigations of the financial stimulus plan showed just what was – and wasn’t -- working in individual communities.

Like every media company, AP is facing its own financial challenges. In 2009 we offered $30 million in rate reductions for members, and this year pricing changes will bring another $35 million in reductions for members – for a total of $65 million. Last year, the AP underwent a reduction in force to reduce staff costs by 10 percent. We’ve worked hard to assure that these reductions don’t impact the news you want and need. On the state level, an in-house task force has been working with members to assure we provide the best coverage possible with our resources.

Beyond news coverage and business innovation, there’s another area of AP leadership that I think does not get nearly enough appreciation. I’m talking about AP’s long and continuing fight for facts and truth.

Last year, AP filed more than 1,500 open records requests, and appealed, negotiated or worked on nearly 90 cases to prevent public officials from hiding their actions from the people they serve. Some of these were big: like requesting (and getting) Timothy Geithner’s appointment book. Others were smaller, but no less impactful. Many were done in conjunction with you, the members. Most of these cases broke important news, which is what we do.

We all face financial challenges. But I think we all also agree that these are critical duties of our Cooperative. Who else out there is going to hold government officials to account but a free press?

Now, I’m going to turn this over to Tom, who will tell you more about some of the opportunities ahead for AP and its members.



On the Net:

AP Directors vote to launch a wide range of collaborative new digital initiatives

Four Incumbents, two new members elected to AP board

AP CEO Tom Curley's remarks