8/8/2019 APmemo1

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The Associated Press and CNN

When AP and CNN could not reach agreement on licensing AP content, it meant CNN would nolonger have access to the breaking news and worldwide reporting resources of the AssociatedPress.

"We will no longer use AP materials or services," CNN Worldwide President Jim Walton toldemployees in an internal memo in June. "The content we offer will be distinctive, compellingand, I am proud to say, our own."

In fact, however, CNN continues to rely heavily, and apparently systematically, on AP breakingnews, exclusive enterprise and in-depth reporting. CNN often cites AP, in its online stories andon its cable channels, trading on AP's valuable and respected brand and also free riding onresource intensive reporting done at AP expense. In the absence of AP, CNN is often late withbreaking news stories, forced to rely on press releases and secondary sources, behind andsometimes even incorrect on critical facts and updates.

CNN, which is owned by Time Warner, is primarily a consumer broadcast channel, but it hasstated it intends to expand its efforts at a text wire. In a pitch letter for the CNN wire service inTexas, sales staff claim CNN is "AP Free on ALL platforms." In the letter, they also admit "wewill never have full-time reporters or writers in Amarillo, Austin or Laredo and that they do notaggregate sports content." (A copy of the letter is included in this package.) AP is a not for profitorganization founded 164 years ago as a text service, and is now a multimedia newsorganization with text, video and still photography journalists in all 52 states.

Broadly, here is what CNN is doing in the absence of AP.

Trading on the AP brand by systematically citing AP in breaking news and other stories.The Associated Press brand has wide and deep market recognition, and its reputationfor accuracy and integrity provides its customers with enhanced credibility and brandvalue.

Taking advantage of reporting done at AP's expense. Often this involves reporting thesingle most important part of an AP story, after AP has expended significant resourcesand efforts to investigate and report the findings.

Being forced to play catch-up without AP. CNN is now often far behind AP in breakingnews and other stories as they try to match us. The stories they must follow may be outof date by the time they are filed, badly sourced, incomplete, without important detail andsometimes just plain incorrect. In some cases, CNN has had to rely on press releasesfor stories AP breaks.

Attached you will find a head-to-head comparison of AP and CNN resources. Also attached arespecific case examples of how CNN is using AP at the same time that it is doing without AP. Wewill update them weekly.