Associated Press CEO Tom Curley was the honoree and keynoter at Thursday night’s annual Knight-Bagehot dinner in NYC, and he came out swinging against the very partners it syndicates a lot to: the online portals. His speech, posted online, is emblematic of the schizophrenic state of the news media industry: hope and despair all wrapped into a nervous bundle. “We—the news industry—have come to that fork in the road. We must take bold, decisive steps to secure the audiences and funding to support journalism’s essential role in both our economy and democracy, or find ourselves on an ugly path to obscurity....The portals are running off with our best stuff, and we’re afraid or unable to make or enforce deals that drive fair value. Revenue lines in a good month are flat. In other months, they inspire the merchants of debt to imagine how they might take us over and show us how much smarter they are.”

Then he lists the things that need to be done to get the news media out of the siege mentality: “Next to go must be despair. We begin by getting our heads around the most important fact of all: we work in a growth industry. The woe-is-us over the decline in appointment media obscures terrific opportunities.”

Then, back on the portals: “Great content always has needed great distribution. These days that means deals have to be done with portals, especially those with promising new ad models and capabilities. But the deals have to be good deals. Most news organizations did deals years ago for promotion. The deals are one-sided. Job one for industry leaders should be doing whatever it takes to get a fair deal even if they must swallow some decades-long enmities and partner for more clout.  Enforcement, too, must be a part. What we do comes at great cost and sacrifice, even death. We believe content should have wide distribution. We intend to be compensated for it.”

Three things worth noting on this speech, to give it context: Firstly, that AP did a deal with Google (NSDQ: GOOG) News to republish AP’s stories...and there’s some underlying revenue elements to it. Secondly, more recently, AP sued Verisign-owned Moreover on copyright infringement. And then, AP just announced major changes in its news packages and how it sells them to its customers.

Staci adds: One more bit of context ... AP’s board is headed by William Dean Singleton, CEO of Denver-based MediaNews Group. Late last month, Singleton sent memo across the newspaper chain that could be viewed as a manifesto about the end of business as usual, including combining news and business operations across papers. The memo also stressed an “online first” approach for its newsrooms. 

• Google News Starts Publishing Full Stories; AP, AFP, PA and Canadian Press; Still No Ads
• AP Sues Moreover and Verisign For Stories Copyright Infringement
• AP Board Approves New Pricing Structure; Pay As You Go Included; Lower Revenues At AP As a Result