In the fall of 2009, Charlotte Observer Editor Rick Thames wondered what his newspaper would look like a year hence. For more than 120 years, the Observer had not only covered Charlotte, but had set the public agenda for 40 counties across southern and western North Carolina. But like so many metro dailies, the Observer since 2000 had suffered circulation declines, weakened print advertising sales, and a steady migration of its audience to online alternatives. [1]

Thameshad already cut costs across the board. He had offered buyouts to members of the newsroom, and the publisher did likewise on the business side of the paper. He laid off some staff outright. [2] He had also looked for other revenue sources, including creating a network of hyperlocal community websites, which would provide both new advertising and news opportunities. But one critical, and expensive, service remained so far untouched: the Associated Press (AP) wire.

For generations, the venerable wire service had brought the nation and the world to Charlotte’s front door with fast, reliable reporting. It had provided a rich supplement to the Observer ’s local, state, and regional coverage. In late 2009, however, the Observer was approaching a crossroads in its relationship with the AP. Over the previous decade, the cooperative—owned by its members, who paid hefty fees to belong—had struck numerous deals with online portals to syndicate its content across the Internet. Notably, these deals did not benefit the AP’s members.

At the Observer , Editor Thames was left to wonder if—and how—the AP’s future growth strategy included his paper. On the one hand, the AP provided crucial services, including breaking news, international, and sports coverage. Furthermore, it had recently created tiered levels of service—Complete and Limited—to assist struggling newspapers by providing them with content choices which could mean savings. On the other hand, the AP was expensive, with major metro dailies spending high six-figure sums—or more—to fully subscribe. Thames had to reconcile where and how the AP’s strengths fit into the Observer ’s strategic roadmap and whether the two organizations’ leadership teams shared similar goals for the future.

The Observer was changing, too. Thames and his leadership team faced numerous choices. Should the paper try to remain the source for its readers of all categories of news—the longtime model for a metro daily? Or should it focus on local reporting? In either scenario, what role would the AP play? Should the Observer continue as a Complete AP subscriber, scale back to the Limited tier, or eliminate the service altogether, relying instead on a combination of local staff reporting, supplemental wire services, and shared content from fellow McClatchy Company newspapers? With the Observer ’s AP subscription up for renewal by the end of 2009, Thames would need to decide soon.