CNN pitches wire service to counter Associated Press

CNN, in the afterglow of an election season of record ratings for cable news, is elbowing in on a new line of business: catering to financially strained newspapers looking for an alternative to The Associated Press.

For nearly a month, a trial version of CNN's wire service has been on display in some newspapers. But this week editors from about 30 papers will visit Atlanta to hear CNN's plans to provide coverage of big national and international events - and maybe local ones - on a smaller scale and at a lower cost than the AP.

A number of newspapers are unhappy with the cost of AP, a nonprofit corporation owned by the 1,400 papers that are its members.

The breadth of the service that CNN will ultimately offer is unclear, and partly depends on the demands of newspapers. CNN Wire could offer columns written by some of its high-profile personalities, like Anderson Cooper. It also plans to offer text versions of its major investigative pieces for television.

Local coverage could be in the offing. In August, CNN said it was dispatching journalists to 10 cities in the United States, but in a bare-bones fashion: The correspondents will be laptop- and camera-toting one-person bands.