It’s not KPNS but AP’s ‘StoryShare’ could fill KPA members’ needs for a news service


KPA members who have missed the Kentucky Press News Service, since it was folded in April, 2020, might have something to replace it in the near future.

At its July 16 meeting, the KPA Board is going to hear from the Associated Press’ Adam Yeomans about the AP”s “StoryShare.”

While some 200 media organizations in other areas have signed up for StoryShare, Adam says this is the first time the AP has approached a state press association to participate since it had such a successful experience with KPNS/

There are a few similarities but it won’t be operated the same.

Under KPNS, members participating had a KPA staff member scraping and posting stories twice a day and once on weekends. Newspapers had to do nothing but allow KPA access to its stories online.

Under StoryShare, newspapers who want to participate will be required to upload the stories to a website that will be established. StoryShare will also allow for photos to be uploaded to the site. That’s something members often requested from KPNS but photos were never incorporated into the service.

And instead of focusing on hard news or breaking news, the AP sees its service more inclined for feature type articles.

The other difference in the future, is that newspapers will eventually pay a nominal fee to have access to the stories that will be uploaded. Initially, the proposal to the Board will be for KPA to pay a first-year fee to encourage newspapers to give StoryShare a try. After that, the AP will establish a fee that each newspaper will be required to pay to continue with the service.

Adam Yeomans has already participated in two Zoom sessions, including one with the KPA News Editorial Division who asked that he attend the July 16 Board meeting.

Here’s an overview of StoryShare prepared by Adam:

Over the past year, the Associated Press has been piloting a news-sharing and collaboration platform in several states. It is similar to the KPA’s Kentucky News Service and may be a possible successor for the KPA’s story sharing service.

The platform is called AP StoryShare. It is a password-protected, AP-moderated online site designed to let news outlets easily and quickly share content in all formats and collaborate on coverage of whatever topics they choose.

Participants can contribute as much or as little as they like, and have complete control over what is shared. What you share and when you share it is entirely up to you.

More than 200 media organizations in Oregon, Colorado, New York, West Virginia and six New England states have shared more than 5,000 text stories and hundreds of photos.

The AP conducted a demo for KPA’s News Editorial Division last month, where it was received positively. The AP also plans to demo the platform at the KPA Board meeting July 16 at Campbellsville University.

The AP approached KPA about its potential interest in StoryShare because of the success of KPA’s news service and interest from KPA members in finding a suitable alternative.

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