About a year ago, my colleague Josh Benton scrutinized just how much the newspaper company Gannett has contributed to the destruction of local news. Crunching some numbers, he found that “Gannett has eliminated more than half of its jobs in the United States in four years.” When Josh took a look at his own hometown paper, The Daily Advertiser of Lafayette, Louisiana (one of Gannett’s 200+ local newspapers, on top of USA Today) he noted, “There are now days when zero news stories out of Lafayette are published.” What is published on those days? A hodgepodge of stories from other Gannett publications across the state (which, he observed, “look like thinly reskinned versions of each other”) — and wire stories.

This is all important context to bear in mind when taking in the news first reported Tuesday by Ben Mullin that, starting March 25, Gannett will no longer publish the AP’s wire content.

scoop: Gannett will stop using AP content in its publications on March 25, according to a memo from chief content officer Kristin Roberts. “This shift will give us the opportunity to redeploy more dollars…where we might have gaps.”

— Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) March 19, 2024

Natalie Korach reported for The Wrap that, specifically, Gannett is ending its legacy AP premium subscription, and described the change as “a significant blow to the not-for-profit wire service collective that still relies heavily on its premium memberships.” The end of this partnership means Gannett will stop using “AP dispatches, photos, and video.” Korach noted, “For years, editors at the AP generated items for USA Today’s famous ‘News From Around Our 50 States’ page; AP news, reviews and photos have been a staple in Gannett-owned local morning and afternoon editions for generations.”

A Gannett spokesperson confirmed the news to me in an email. “This decision enables us to invest further in our newsrooms and leverage our incredible USA Today Network of more than 200 newsrooms across the nation as well USA Today to reach and engage more readers, viewers and listeners,” chief communications officer Lark-Marie Anton told me in a statement. Anton declined to comment on how much the AP partnership cost Gannett.

The AP partnership end doesn’t mean wire content will entirely disappear from Gannett publications — “We will leverage Reuters for global news as appropriate,” Anton told me.

AP media relations manager Nicole Meir told me in a statement, “We are shocked and disappointed to see this memo.” She added, “Our conversations with Gannett have been productive and are ongoing. We remain hopeful Gannett will continue to support the AP beyond the end of their membership term at the end of 2024, as they have done for over a century.”

At least one person, to some extent, saw this news coming. In his 2022 Nieman Lab prediction, Syracuse University associate journalism professor Joshua Darr wrote that “a major metropolitan daily will sever its ties with the major wire services and go local-only.” His prediction was supportive of that change; he argued, “Local newspapers should stop filling their published product with non-local news and focus on what makes them unique, even if this breaks from the tradition of what many expect from a local newspaper or televised newscast.” But Darr, and others, remain skeptical about whether Gannett will go local-only:

One year late on the @NiemanLab prediction from 2022. (“Local-only” with Gannett … TBD).https://t.co/JbszdwI6vR https://t.co/zMykpHuknL pic.twitter.com/HXda9Y7tSL

— Joshua P. Darr (@joshuadarr) March 19, 2024

News: Chief Content Officer Kristen Roberts announced the elimination of the use of Associated Press in all publications as of March 25.

confirmed by two gannett journalists- first reported by @BenMullin

A blow to AP and readers.

— David Folkenflik (@davidfolkenflik) March 19, 2024

Gannett has decided to cut ties with one of the mightiest journalism outlets out there. Even if news consumers don’t understand just how much of what they read/watch is generated by the AP, there’s no way this will go well with or for them. https://t.co/6DLFt99l3h

— Rebecca Lavoie (@reblavoie) March 19, 2024

Associated Press stories fill out most daily newspapers’ national, international and even local pages. Sports, arts, politics … Gannett papers are about to look real thin. https://t.co/WLa0TdZhf0

— Hunter Pauli (@paulimeth) March 19, 2024

This seems like a terrible development in a very very very bad year for journalism. https://t.co/MXUUizdumh

— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) March 19, 2024

Gannett: We’re going to lay reporters off, leaving some newspapers to rely solely on wire stories

Also Gannett: About those wire stories …

Shameful all the way around https://t.co/yg2WnpOKMN

— Andrew Bahl (@AndrewBahl) March 19, 2024

Absolutely bonkers choice

I'll believe this reasoning when Gannett re-posts any singular one (1) job it has eliminated from Memphis in just the last year https://t.co/vxrEK48nM9

— Laura D. Testino (@ldtestino) March 19, 2024