AP: Advancing Periodicals or Augmenting Prices?

Last summer, the Associated Press announced a new payment plan for its customers that allows the purchase of its stories "a la carte", rather than charging a lump sum for any number of articles that it has produced. The plan was created to help newspapers and periodicals save money in an economy that is not in their favor and is also meant to tailor to the specific interests of these individual publications by keeping their options flexible. This new form of payment will not take effect until 2009, but already there has been ample protest from newspapers who are dissatisfied with this plan.

The complaint of many editors is that the new pricing system will not lower prices, but rather, keep them the same or even raise them. AP President Tom Curley has admitted that, ""about 80% would get a cutback, 10% will remain the same and 10% would go up." This seems like a good deal for most newspapers, but is the AP in a position to make such a deal with its customers?

If you look at any newspaper these days, a good percentage (sometimes most) of the stories used are from the AP. Without these stories, much of the news that we depend on would be absent. Indeed, local news would be highly available, but national and international news would be hard to come by. Becasue newspapers and the general public rely so much on the services of the AP, should it be free to make its own restructuring decisions, or do they have the responsibility to provide for those who depend on it? As one of the biggest names and most trusted sources in the news community, ethically, the AP must choose wisely.