Earlier this month CNN invited about three dozen print editors to Atlanta to discuss the viability of a new news service that would be a lower-cost version of Associated Press. About 100 U.S. newspapers have served the required two-year notice to leave AP, principally because of rates.
The results of the Atlanta gathering were seemingly mixed. A number of smaller papers appear interested, but the larger markets don't appear publicly convinced ---- although it should be noted they haven't seen a service yet and also know the economics of their business are so challenged that dropping AP may be a necessity in years to come.
The San Francisco Chronicle has an update on the CNN option. CNN is saying a decision on whether to proceed will be made within weeks, not months.

In truth, few can offer the breadth of service of Associated Press. In truth, few need it.
The dispute at the moment involving about 100 newspapers and AP focuses on rates, on tiers of service and how they're defined, on ownership of content and how it can be shared, and on a general upset among papers that in their darkest moments AP isn't bending sufficiently to help them weather what looks like a protracted storm.
In a few isolated cases --- by no means common in the industry --- some papers are beginning to form regional alliances to share copy and serve notice they'll live without AP some time in the future (AP requires a two-year severance notice, so the revenue will keep arriving until 2010).
But CNN has sensed an opening and stepped in with an offer to provide a text service to complement the extensive audio/video elements it now sells to television, radio and online media. It has invited papers to come see the proposed expansion this week in Atlanta, and the New York Times provides an overview.

Ken Doctor has a very thorough look at the issues involving CNN's proposal to enter the wire-service business as a supplier to newspapers of multi-platform content. Last month CNN indicated it has assembled the machinery to provide national and international content to papers in competition with Associated Press, the standard-bearer under some stress for its rate structure from its cash-strapped member news organizations.
He evaluates the pitch CNN will make in a couple of weeks to the papers (it has invited reps to Atlanta for an unveiling) and poses nine good, if circuitous, questions about the strategic and tactical challenges in the plan.

In the digital age the media services of greatest use will be the ones with deep vaults of video. Which is why CNN's new offering of a full wire service ought to be taken seriously by Associated Press.
CNN.com is a well-written site, so extending that effort into a supply of breaking news is clearly viable. Other challenges are a little tougher ---  for instance, how to supply newsrooms with contextual and analytical material.
What CNN lacks in bsic text it can secure in part through its vast international bureaus and partly through several vertical relationships in its parent company's print stable. That stable of sources might be the key to the deal and to the attractiveness of taking CNN Wire over other services.
Even though AP and Reuters have successfully moved into video in the last decade, CNN's roster is pretty much unmatched worldwide. Its commentators are name brands (if syndicated on their own, something CNN will need to repatriate to achieve its best success). But overall, AP has to be taking notice in a hurry.

Rick Sanchez, an inveterate (as much as you can be) Twitterer, is going to ingrain Twitter into a CNN program.
Rick Sanchez Direct will employ a raft of social media. It's a breakthrough of sorts.
I suppose that means that sound bites will be limited to 140 characters, that at some point he won't be able to follow any more people, and that the show will have to take a break regularly when the Tweet feeds go down.

Everyone is looking for ways to economize on news production, so it's hardly surprising that in opening 10 new bureaus across the U.S., CNN has chosen the most affordable route. That means working out of other organizations' office space, with a laptop and Internet camera to report.
ABC News tried somewhat the same approach last year in some of its foreign bureaus. Which is not news at all to the dozens of Internet-based news organizations that have been using cellphone cameras and laptops for years to deliver journalism. What remains surprising is that criticism remains of these mobile-journalism models, as if their journalism isn't the true journalism of the mahogany desk.

CNN.com has introduced BackStory, a feature that provides related background information to developing news stories. It's an interesting tool that has the potential to help people understand the context of a development --- in particular how other events led to it. At the very least, it's a resource of archived information.
Its first application involves the 2001 anthrax scare in the U.S., recently in the news again because the suspected perpetrator committed suicide.

Much as this is a blog on media change, it is impossible not to get drawn into the last few days of speculation about the future of Katie Couric and her role at the CBS Evening News. I'll get to the media change part soon.
The New York Times weighs in today with a lengthy backroom piece, co-bylined by its sterling media writer Bill Carter, that reveals a recent CBS executive discussion with Couric and her agent about whether she might leave the anchor job before her contract expires in 2011 --- say, right after the U.S. election later this year --- and occupy a new network role.
Now, I've only managed in the much tinier Canadian division of this big league, and only for a couple of years, but the leak of this discussion is almost certainly the kiss of death for her tenure. Anchor loyalty is frail and needs constant nurturing. Audiences flee easily. It's hard to imagine how viewers will provide loyalty (not that they were, anyway) when it's feasible Couric and CBS are even musing about a premature departure. Just to have that meeting and discussion --- or to leak it, anyway --- is to essentially generate the goodbye.
Which brings me back to the topic of media change, because Couric was supposed to be it --- a new approach to nightly news, a new vivaciousness, perhaps with a new set of commitments around life-relevant themes, in order to connect with a disaffected audience and help save the genre. While many of the purists were worried she would fluff down the news, their concerns were the least of the eventual worries.
No sooner was she on than did she start seeming more solemn and, well, wholly traditional. She'd surrendered that wondrous breakfast-time Today Show effect and adopted nothing magical in moving to dinner-time CBS News.
Her status today is an eight-figure mess and her demise will once again touch off the debate about the viability of the nightly newscast. U.S. network television news ratings are in decline, partly because of the addition of all-news networks like CNN and Fox, and partly because the hour of the broadcast is harder to fix as an appointment in a commuter/long work day world.
Given that it was reported this week that CBS News is in talks with CNN about cost-sharing its newsgathering worldwide, the Tiffany network is in the midst of a journalistic perfect storm.

The new BBC site is no longer under wraps and it's highly impressive.
Most notable as a comparison to its old site is the design simplicity. I counted fewer than 20 stories on the splash page (less than a dozen if you count the duplicated files).
The modules are customizable, as is the colour scheme.
I'd love to see the research in behind the redesign, because I think many managers are looking at reducing the complexity of splash pages and permitting users to choose elements. CNN's recent changes went in that direction, although there's a lot of white space and small type that doesn't work as well as my first glance at the Beeb.