🤖 AI Summary
アピックス(AP)は、米国の報道職員に対して買収オファーを提供し、「19世紀半ば以来続く新聞 Journalism の焦点から撤退するための加速」と報告しました。この決定は経営が安定している状況から行われており、新聞業界からの収入減少とデジタル、放送、テクノロジークライアントに対する需要増加への対応です。
「AP は危機に瀕していない」(-- Julie Pace, APの編集長兼副社長--)との発言によると、現在の顧客層を認識するために変更が必要であるとしました。APはビジュアルジャーナリズムに焦点を当て、人工知能投資を通じた新たな収益源を開拓しています。大きな新聞企業からの収入は、かつての約10%になりました。
Paceによると、世界全体でスタッフを5%未満削減する計画です。しかし、買収オファーは米国報道職員のみに提供されるため、その人数は5%以上となることが予想されます。具体的な職員数やレイオフの有無については明確ではありません。
アピックスは19世紀中頃にニューヨーク新聞社が共同で運営する形で始まりましたが、現在は新聞企業ではなく視覚ジャーナリズムに重点を置いているとのことです。
The Associated Press is offering buyouts to U.S. journalists "as part of an acceleration away from the focus on newspaper journalism that sustained the company since the mid-1800s," the not-for-profit outlet reported today. AP says it is making the move from a position of strength, responding to shrinking newspaper revenue and growing demand from digital, broadcast, and tech clients.
"The AP is not in trouble," said Julie Pace, executive editor and senior vice president of the AP. "We're making these changes from a position of strength but we're doing so now to recognize our changing customer base." From the report: The news organization is becoming more focused on visual journalism and developing new revenue sources, particularly through companies investing in artificial intelligence, to cope with the economic collapse of many legacy news outlets. Once the lion's share of AP's revenue, big newspaper companies now account for 10% of its income. "We're not a newspaper company and we haven't been for quite some time," [said Pace].
Despite changes -- the company has doubled the number of video journalists it employs in the United States since 2022 -- remnants of a staffing structure built largely to provide stories to newspapers and broadcasters in individual states have remained. That has its roots well back in American history; the AP was started in the mid-19th century by New York newspapers looking to share the costs of reporting outside their immediate territory.
The number of AP journalists who will lose jobs is murky, in part intentionally. The AP does not say how many journalists it employs, though it has a large international presence as well as its U.S. staff. Pace said the AP's goal is to reduce its global staff by less than 5%. The Marketing and Media Alliance estimated the AP had 3,700 staffers, but it was not clear when that estimate was made. Since buyouts are being offered now to only U.S. journalists, it stands to reason that the cut among that workforce will be more than 5%. Whether there are layoffs depends on how many people take the offer, Pace said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.