Returning money: Brettingen contends the final version returns money to the industry. “We’re getting about $20 million less this year [2009]. .., What gets the attention is the price. If we had found a way to make that easy, it would have been a great plus—if we had simply decided each newspapers could pay us 10 percent less. The difficulty is in a co-op everyone needs to be treated exactly the same.” In this version, “almost all papers go down.” Brettingen is frustrated by suggestions that AP doesn’t understand. “Clearly, we understand that some papers are facing decisions. I can have you or this many local reporters ... hard decisions are being made.” But he and others at AP continue to pitch the service as “one of the great bargains in the industry.”

According to AP, roughly 90 percent of its newspapers save money under the new plan, leaving about 10 percent who won’t save money or could pay more. AP estimates that newspapers spend roughly 1 percent of their total expenses on its services and that smaller papers pay probably about 10 percent of their editorial budget while AP fills close to 40 percent of their main news sections.

Two-year clause: Brettingen describes it as “exercising the right to leave you in two years” but says AP has always carried 4-5 percent cancellations and that a number of people cancel, lift and reinstate. Why two years ? “There are a lot of reasons for that … It’s really recognition of this is not your newsprint supplier, this is not where you buy your ink. This is a news cooperative that had people everywhere in the world, many of them covering stories at great risk. ... There was certainly a sense that being part of the co-op was different.” It’s also for budgeting purposes. What might happen if these cancellations stick or if more pile on? “What do we spend our money on? We spend our money on news. Less money, less news.” As for the possibility that the Spokesman-Review could win its challenge? He doesn’t see it happening.

Life as a co-op: Co-op members elect the board of directors; clients like portals don’t have a vote. Brettingen: “Our board is made up of the bosses of a lot of the people we’re hearing from. It doesn’t really change anything but it happens to be true.” A key distinction is members get state news coverage; we don’t license state reports.” Co-op members also share content as part of the contract; it used to be fairly simple to protect local rights to that news but the web makes it “much more difficult.”

Reaction: Brettingen and others at AP are pinning a lot of hope on the new database that is supposed to enhance the use of the news and information newspapers get from the co-op. The training is going on now. We’ve posted a lot of the negative reaction; AP provided me with several positive responses from papers willing to have them shared. For instance, Kenneth A. Larson, managing editor of the Marshalltown Times-Republican in Iowa, lauded the additional news and features his paper can access now; Bill Nutting at Ogden Newspapers listed new products that could be created like Scandinavian news for Minot, ND, with its Scandinavian descendants. The Cox OhioGroup is mining the database with saved searches and execs are pleased with the new pricing. In between, a lot of newspaper execs won’t say anything at all.