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As newspaper editors look back and examine why the controversial Downing Street memo, first published by the Times of London on May 1, received so little coverage in their papers, several of them are pointing to the same culprit: the Associated Press. Editors rely on the worldwide wire service to let them know what's worthy of attention, and that's particularly true for international events. In the case of the Downing Street memo out of London, they say the AP simply failed to cover the story.

Jim Cox, USA Today's senior assignment editor for foreign news, tells Salon that when the story first broke last month, "we looked to wires for guidance" but for days didn't see anything. It was a month before the paper reported on the memo; Cox takes the blame for that omission.

On Sunday, the ombudsman at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune addressed readers' complaints about the paper's lack of Downing memo coverage. According to that account, the paper's nation/world editor, Dennis McGrath, was aware of the memo story when it broke in May, and he and his deputies "began watching for a wire story. A week later, they were still watching. 'We were frustrated the wires weren't providing stories on this,' McGrath said." The paper eventually assigned the story to a local reporter.

At the Portland Oregonian recently, public editor Michael Arrieta-Walden covered the same territory: "For an international story, the Oregonian primarily relies on material provided from about 10 wire services. The Associated Press, the world's largest newsgathering organization, essentially didn't cover the document in its reports until last weekend in a story mostly about John Bolton, Bush's nominee to become U.N. ambassador. The document then was reported on in an AP story stemming from last week's news conference involving Blair and Bush."

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http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=...

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