Associated Press pourrait réduire ses effectifs de 10% en 2009

Confronté à la crise financière mondiale et aux difficultés de la presse américaine, Associated Press a l'intention de réduire ses effectifs de 10% en 2009, ont indiqué jeudi des sources au sein de l'agence AP.

AP emploie quelque 3000 journalistes et un total d'environ 4100 personnes dans le monde et les réductions d'emplois pourraient porter sur environ 400 postes.

Tom Curley, président d'AP, a livré ces informations lors d'une réunion du personnel.

"AP, qui a récemment instauré un gel stratégique des recrutements, pourrait devoir réduire son personnel l'an prochain. Si c'est le cas, l'agence espère parvenir à la majeure partie de cette réduction grâce à des départs naturels", dit un communiqué fourni à Reuters.

Ce projet de réductions d'emplois intervient sur fond de restructuration des opérations d'AP aux Etats-Unis afin de fournir aux journaux une couverture que l'agence dit vouloir plus approfondie et plus pertinente.

Fondée il y a 162 ans pour fournir des informations aux journaux américains, AP a revu cette année sa grille de tarifs afin d'abaisser les prix pour les journaux américains membres de la coopérative qui ont vu leurs revenus publicitaires décliner.

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Le texte de Reuters en anglais:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Associated Press plans to cut up to 10 percent of its workforce in 2009, according to sources at the news service, as it copes with tough financial times and ailing member newspapers.

The AP has one of the world's largest news-gathering teams, employing about 3,000 journalists, and a total of about 4,100 people worldwide. The cuts could amount to about 400 employees.

AP Chief Executive Tom Curley delivered the news as part of a "town hall" meeting with employees.

"All areas and ways of doing business are being reviewed," said an AP statement provided to Reuters. "The AP, which recently instituted a strategic hiring freeze, may need to reduce staff over the next year. If so, it hopes to achieve much of the reduction through attrition."

The job cuts come as the AP restructures its operations in the United States in a bid to provide what it said would be deeper, more relevant coverage for its member newspapers.

It is unclear how the cuts would affect the AP's news flow. Many U.S. residents cannot read a day's helping of news in print or on the Internet without encountering an AP story. The group has 240 bureaus worldwide, numerous local U.S. bureaus and 1,500 U.S. daily paper members.

The AP, which started 162 years ago as a newsgathering cooperative for U.S. papers, earlier this year revised its rate structure for member papers to help lower the fees that they pay as advertising revenue declines imperil publishers.

This comes after publishers objected to the terms of a previous rate structure plan the AP had planned to introduce.

One big publisher, Tribune Co, gave notice that it might drop the AP stories over the next two years as a result.

Some papers, like The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey, have started exploring running editions without AP stories, which often fills many pages of papers that have been slashing staff, leaving few people and few ads to fill the space.

The Star-Ledger and many other papers, as well as big publishers from USA Today's Gannett Co Inc to McClatchy Co and the New York Times Co have collectively cut thousands of jobs this year. Investors in turn have abandoned these companies as stock market prospects as their chances for recovery fail to materialize.

In addition to wires such as Bloomberg, Dow Jones Newswires and Agence France-Presse, the AP competes with Reuters News, a division of Thomson Reuters Corp.

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Le texte de AP:

Associated Press staff to shrink 10 per cent over next year: chief executive

2 days ago

NEW YORK — The Associated Press will trim 10 per cent of its work force over the next year as a reduction in fees paid by member newspapers and a declining economy take their toll, chief executive Tom Curley said Thursday.

The staff reduction will amount to a loss of more than 400 positions from a global staff of 4,100, and Curley said the cuts will include some of the news co-operative's 3,000 journalists.

Curley told the staff in a meeting webcast to AP offices globally that he hopes most of the cuts will be achieved through attrition, but he did not rule out layoffs.

Asked if the cuts would include newsroom jobs, Curley noted that 75 per cent of the staff are journalists. "Everybody's going to participate," he said.

The AP is still profitable, but cash flow is expected to decline from $95 million this year to $66 million in 2009. Next year, much of that cash is committed to funding the pension plan, taxes and capital spending, "leaving us zero wiggle room," Curley said.

The co-operative also faces rising competition, including from Time Warner Inc.'s CNN unit, which is forming a wire service it intends to market to newspapers.

More than 100 AP member newspapers also have threatened to quit the service, including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, Minn.

The company instituted a hiring freeze in October, and Curley said its effectiveness will be reviewed at the end of the first quarter.

The news organization also announced the location of two regional editing centres: One in Phoenix will cover the Western United States, and one in Chicago will cover in the Midwest. The first such hub launched this year in Atlanta to cover the South. Another, based in Philadelphia to cover the Eastern United States, is in the works.

The co-operative intends to shift 91 editor positions from its New York headquarters and U.S. bureaus to the new centres through 2009.

AP is a global news company founded in 1846. It serves about 1,500 newspapers and 5,000 radio and television station members in the United States.

About 1,300 of them are full members and more than 4,000 are associate members - generally weekly newspapers and broadcasters.