This story says CNN is going to give it the old college try:
The help-wanted ad described the service like this: “The CNN Wire is on CNN’s editorial front line, editing and vetting the work of correspondents and producers worldwide and doing original reporting for use across CNN’s networks and Web pages.”
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“Look at the history of CNN,” Walton said. “We launched as one network in 1980. Today CNN is more than just one network. We have a huge radio business. A huge online business. We’re about content.”
“We want to own more of our own content and reporting. We felt we had to look at our business as more than television,” he added.
The Associated Press is more than 150 years old and is the world’s largest news-gathering operation, with more than 3,000 journalists in over 100 countries.
“I think the crucial question is whether CNN is going to try to really go head-to-head with The AP, or offer something that’s a lot more selective,” said Jack Driscoll, the former editor of The Boston Globe and editor in residence at the MIT Media Laboratory. “Newspapers are hurting so much that they could be willing to get less for less.”
In that case, Driscoll said, there is probably room for a new competitor.
“But if CNN is going to try to do something close to the range and quality of The Associated Press, that’s awfully hard to do, and it’s a huge financial undertaking.”
Some newspapers that have long relied on The AP have said they would drop the service because of its cost, which varies — The Columbus Dispatch, for example, paid more than $800,000 a year. Others, including The Star Tribune of Minneapolis and the Tribune Company, one of the largest newspaper chains, have also given notice that they plan to drop out of the service. The AP, in response, announced in October that it would reduce prices, which will result in a cumulative savings of $30 million annually for its member newspapers.