Associated Press monitors CNN since dropping service

Michael Calderone Yahoo! News 09/17/2010 20:48

CNN Worldwide President Jim Walton told staff in June that the network was dropping its contract with the Associated Press and would provide its audience with content that is "distinctive, compelling and, I am proud to say, our own." But the AP has been closely monitoring CNN's coverage and claims that the network routinely uses the wire service's reporting, according to internal memos obtained by The Upshot.

CNN, the memo states, "continues to rely heavily, and apparently systematically, on AP breaking news, exclusive enterprise and in-depth reporting." (You can read the first AP memo here).

CNN, which had a relationship with the AP since the network's founding in 1980, is also now trying to sell its own service, CNN Wire. However, CNN isn't completely alone when it comes to news gathering: The network recently struck a deal with Reuters to supplement its coverage when needed. (Disclosure: Yahoo! News is an AP partner).

"We have not missed any major news story since discontinuing the use of the AP," said CNN spokesman Nigel Pritchard. "This has been a seamless transition for us. CNN is proud of the outstanding and original journalism of recent months, and continues to look to the future, not the past."

AP spokesman Paul Colford, while not commenting on the memos, summed up the news organization's problem with the network's coverage. "CNN continues to make extensive use of AP's original reporting, even though they no longer pay us for it," Colford said. "We are monitoring it very closely, and are considering our options."