Free Republic

Excerpt - As the economic pressure on newspapers intensifies, the Associated Press, a 162-year-old newsgathering cooperative for the industry, is beginning to fracture. Long a newspaper-centric organization, the AP has shifted its focus in recent years. With readers and advertisers migrating away from news on printed paper and toward cable TV and the Web, the AP is devoting more of its resources to producing content for other news outlets. These include the very Web portals that pose the greatest competition for newspapers, such as Yahoo and Google, which are now among the AP's biggest customers. For some editors, the AP's...

Some have accused the media of trying to undermine the war effort by swaying public opinion with images of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, but the visuals are justified and important, according to Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley. Curley was the keynote speaker of the Sunshine Week dinner at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on March 18. Curley defended the media's use of the controversial photographs as "moving and very unifying." "Well, we've all tried and we've all been turned down, and I think your question is another reminder we should keep trying," Curley said when...

NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. military's plan to seek a criminal case against an Associated Press photographer in Iraq without disclosing the charges or evidence against him makes a mockery of American democratic principles, AP President and CEO Tom Curley said Saturday. "This is a poor example—and not the first of its kind—of the way our government honors the democratic principles and values it says it wants to share with the Iraqi people," Curley said in a column in The Washington Post. The U.S. military notified the AP last weekend that it intended to submit a complaint against Bilal...

The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing. Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system. Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in September 2004....

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Internet will change the way news is provided to the world by giving consumers the power to demand and receive any sports score, analysis or breaking story instantly, the head of the world's largest news organization said.Newspapers, TV broadcasts and even fancy Web pages will have less meaning as people use Web-surfing programs and recording devices to pick and choose items from various providers, said Tom Curley, president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press. In the new media age, people will be able to dictate exactly what news they want, when they want...