AP shift to Web: good or bad?

With the Associated Press shifting more emphasis for Web content as opposed to print media, members who subscribe to the services are becoming disgruntled. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121444598979205887.html) AP is beginning to tell them they have bigger fish to fry and they are shifting their reporters to other venues.

I have long been frustrated by the lack of original reporting in newspapers because everyone seems to be taking the easy way out and running AP stories. Having some AP stories is okay, but when almost every story is an AP story, I’m no longer reading my community newspaper. And when we all are reading the same thing we see on television or hearing the exact same story on radio, it distorts our perception of the story because of the lack of fresh approaches and angles.

If newspapers go back to covering stories on their own, we might get back to a diversified content that gives us a more rounded view of issues. I say, let them go to the Web. If papers put reporters back on the beat that can only be good news for the public.