After two years, US newspapers drop Reuters America and go back to AP

The Chicago Tribune and six other Tribune Publishing titles began using AP again for text, photos, video and election data on 1 January. The other newspapers are the Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Hartford Courant, Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia. The Los Angeles Times, largest newspaper in the Tribune group, did not drop its AP membership.

In a cost-cutting move, Tribune dropped membership in the AP cooperative in December 2012 and became the inaugural client for Reuters America, a cheaper US domestic service launched in 2010 with the aim of taking on the AP on its home ground. The seven newspapers had already reduced their level of AP service concurrent with the Reuters America launch and dropped AP in full at the start of 2013.

Last July, Chicago Tribune editor Gerould Kern defended the switch to Reuters as an acceptable substitute, saying that at “a price that has saved us significant amount of money,” the Tribune and others were getting “more than adequate” content from Reuters and could devote more resources to local investigations, arts and sports.

After the group’s change of heart, Matthew Hutchison, Tribune Publishing’s senior vice president for corporate communications, said: “The AP delivers premium content that our readers across all platforms expect. We made our recent news service choice based on a number of key criteria, including: meeting our readers’ content expectations, achieving the balance of cost and value, and a desire to secure one primary news service for all Tribune Publishing business units.”

A Reuters spokesperson said the company was "confident [Tribune] will return to Reuters America in the future" while noting that the service just signed its 50th client. ■