How Associated Press is distorting the US newspaper market

Another example of how Nick Davies' arguments are proving popular.

Over at Pajamas media,Steve Borris looks at the effect of Associated Press on the American media.

At face value, the AP seems like a good thing, allowing newspapers to pool their resources to keep costs of reporting non-local news low. But it has always been of questionable value to news consumers, reducing competition among newspapers.

For Steve the real problem today is

not the number of newspapers we now have, but that they refuse to compete with each other, a symptom of the AP-created culture of collaboration over competition

and the

creation of a news supply chain that reliably turns out monolithic, center-left news. Each evening, the New York Times and Washington Post coordinate their stories, creating what is erroneously referred to as the “national conversation,” but is really how the world looks to editors writing for audiences in the nation’s liberal centers of money and power