Tribune Quits AP for a Week, Should Really Quit Paper Itself

I’d love to see Tribune papers really get some good reporting here, not just from within but from experienced beat-bloggers, city-bloggers, and more comprehensive, microfunded reporting as done by the likes of spot.us.

Tribune papers without AP

Personally I think the best way to cut costs is to slowly let the printed version of the paper wither away, until all that ends up at the end of subscribers’ driveways is a stack of obituaries. THEN everyone will finally get the point and take to reading the paper online, on their kindle, their blackberry, Macintosh tablet or anything else that doesn’t turn your fingers black.

Syndicate far and wide, but don’t put all your marbles in one not-so-reliable product…. especially when it ain’t free!

photo by quinn.anya via flickr (CC)

The Chicago Tribune and other Tribune Co. newspapers plan to utilize as little content from the Associated Press as practical during the week of Nov. 8.

The goal, as the papers review costs and needs, is to see whether severing ties with the news cooperative next fall is a viable option, the Chicago-based media company confirmed Monday.

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NowPublic Names LA’s 20 Most Influential Individuals

Crowdsourcing news site NowPublic released a list of LA’s ‘Most Public’ and — however arbitrarily — selected many of my favorite people both online and off including #4: Micki Krimmel, #5: Zadi Diaz of Epic Fu, #6: Dave Bullock, #8: Zach Behrens of LAist, #10: Kent Nichols of Ask a Ninja, #15: Sean Bonner of MetBlogs, and #20: Efren Toscano of TechZulu.

The full list (and [purported] methodology) is here.

Coolest thing about the list? It drew me back to NowPublic for the first time in months and I really like the re-design. Last year NowPublic’s partnered with AP and more recently, believe it or not, NP acquired Guy Kawasaki’s Truemors. Most attractive about their redesign is the dynamically updating homepage… much more inviting as a reader and contributor.

UPDATE: Sean Bonner wrote a great post exposing the true annoyance of such link-baiting tactics as engineered (in this instance) by PR firm morris+king to exemplify how filling a page with self-referential links (all of the names on the list refer not to that individual’s web site, but to a nowpublic.com member page, created especially for this campaign) and baiting such “influentials” to spread the word and linkylove spam is ugly and should be seen through. THIS is where the rel=”nofollow” comes handy. By adding that tag to the end of a URI, search engine robots and crawlers are flagged to not weigh the reference of a hyperlink to the rank or relevance of the destination.

Obama-mentum: The ‘Bitter Muslim’ is Gonna Win – AP

For a few years I’ve felt an Obama presidency was inevitable and would resort to telling disbelievers to “just wait… it will happen, trust me.”

According to nearly all accounts, Obama virtually has a lock on the Democratic candidacy and has so for six weeks or so. It’s only a matter of time before Hillary Clinton drops out of the race, and the sooner the better.

And public acceptance of this reality is finally approaching critical mass:

In a dramatic reversal, an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll found that a clear majority of Democratic voters now say Sen. Barack Obama has a better chance of defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in November than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Now we can only hope the Clinton campaign raises the white flag before the ridiculous cutting down of Obama cuts into his electability — even in purple states.

AP to Protest U.S. Military Censorship in Afghanistan

American military in Afghanistan provided the Associated Press with an unfortunate, yet easy-to-cover subplot in the aftermath of a battle that led to the death of 16 Afghan civilians.

Amir Shah writes from Kabul:

A freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and a cameraman working for AP Television News said a U.S. soldier deleted their photos and video showing a four-wheel drive vehicle in which three people were shot to death about 100 yards from the suicide bombing. The AP plans to lodge a protest with the American military.

The U.S. military blamed its troops’ unfortunate reaction, in which Afghan civilians were killed, on a “complex ambush” by Taliban militants. The deaths of the 16 civilians will undoubtedly hamper the U.S.’s efforts to redouble their forces while making nice and contributing positively to the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

Carlotta Gall has been delivering the straight gravy from Afghanistan for years for the New York Times:

The shooting sparked demonstrations, with local people blocking the highway, the main road east from the town of Jalalabad to the border with Pakistan. And there were differences in some of the accounts of the incident, with the Americans saying that the civilians were caught in cross-fire between the troops and militants, and Afghan witnesses and some authorities blaming the Americans for indiscriminately shooting at civilian vehicles in anger after the explosion.

No matter whose account you believe, the Taliban’s expected “spring offensive” is on. Two British troops were reported killed in southern Afghanistan yesterday.

troops in Afghanistan 2007 international by country

Graphic of active multinational military force in Afghanistan, 7 feb, 2007, via NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.