Perhaps newspapers are abandoning the AP because it's become a conservative mouthpiece. Why would the head of the AP fall all over himself to present McCain with donuts? Why did he almost take a position on McCain's staff?

Maybe, but I think the greater issue is that the local media outlets are cutting costs.

That's exactly it. Locals being squished under margin demands from headquarters -- the 'bosses' at the corporate apex rolling chunks downhill.

Which action has a limit. Which inevitable limit, the locals have been avoiding facing, or maybe never thought about it. But the words "AP may go out of business" due to loss of critical mass when too many subscribing locals fold up and withdraw, those words carry SHOCKING effect. A freight-train impact that can NOT be ignored, and/or make the point all TOO vivid if it had never occurred to locals before.

The AP is the lifeline. The gravy train. Taken for granted, and capitalized on.

'No AP' is BIG NEWS. Like the columnist says: 'unimaginable,' to run a newspaper without the AP.

Newspapers have cut workers, and cut workers, and cut workers; always thinking -- assuming, actually -- that at bottom, in the worst case, when the editor and publisher were the only two left with a job, well, two people and the AP wire could 'get the paper out.' Now: No AP !

Wow! Now you're talking their jobs. Their town, its paper. Suddenly, worst case is worse than ever imagined. They -- themselves! -- could be out of a job!

Now there is going to be some resistance, some blowback. Finally, (says the workers' voice). Corporatism now has gone too far. Locals are going to be buying their paper back, taking local control back, from the absentee corporate 'ownership.'

Because, bottom line, locals love their town and are beholding with their community -- they/WE live here! -- more, much more, real flesh-and-blood LIFE more than Wall Street.

Threatening the existence of AP changes everything -- it's the tipping point.

The AP is certainly indispensable for local news outlets. But, a conservative mouthpiece? Wow!

Why do you think that United Press International went to "Road Kill"?
That was a great news service.

Lets not forget the AP has been losing credibility for quite a while now. There has been story after story where no fact checking has been done by the AP reporter before publishing. In some cases the reporter hired by the AP has given purposely false stories to promote an agenda.

"America without a strong free press would turn into a truly scary place."

We're already there, Jack: Guantanamo, wiretaps, rendition, unreliable vote counts, a lawless and political Justice Dept, even the military drilling in Portland in a manner to intimidate and frighten people. And half those polled support a candidate who endorses all that and wants more war. I don't know about you, Jack, but I'm truly scared.

"But, a conservative mouthpiece? Wow!"

Individuals in the USA have no idea what the left looks like anymore.

Individuals in the USA have no idea what the left looks like anymore.

That's putting it mildly... The Democratic Party would be considered conservative in most of Europe; the Republicans would be off the charts. Of course, with the country having moved so far to the right that we can barely recognize it anymore (John Mitchell was just telling the truth, for once!), the "center" is more conservative than Republicans were 40 years ago. Eisenhower, Ford, Hatfield, Packwood and so many other Republicans of old wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting on the ballot as Republicans today.

... in the USA: no idea what the left looks like anymore

Too true. Here's some dossier supporting what you say.

1984: The Left, The Democrats & the Future, By Andrew Kopkind & Alexander Cockburn, July 29, 2008 (This article appeared in the July 21, 1984 edition of The Nation.)

With hardly a backward--or forward--look, the bulk of the surviving American left has blithely joined the Democratic Party center, without the will to inflect debate, the influence to inform policy or the leverage to share power. The capitulation of the left--a necessarily catchall word, here covering the spectrum of progressive politics from old socialism to recent radical activism--is almost without precedent. ... By accepting the premises and practices of party unity, the left has negated the reasons for its own existence.