Rewired

Headnote

Following the lead of its newspaper members, the Associated Press, long the bastion of hard news leads and forthe-record coverage, is emphasizing enterprise reporting and stylish writing.

WHEN JIM DRINKARD ARRIVED IN WASHINGTON, D.C., in 1981 to cover Missouri and Kansas news for the Associated Press, his work was the traditional routine of the wire service's regional reporters.

He dogged the two states' congressional delegations. He kept meticulous track of their voting records, the bills they introduced, their speeches, press releases, screwups and successes. He hunkered down through dull committee hearings, sometimes as the last lonely reporter at the press table. He dashed out to file new leads, rewrites and updates. He slogged step-bystep through the passage of the farm bill, from drafting to subcommittee wrangling to committee revisions to floor votes.

When he became a national AP reporter in 1985, his horizon broadened, but the routine was much the same. "I used to write every day," Drinkard says.

Not anymore.

These days, Drinkard cultivates a different approach to covering Congress. His fertile field of news? A beat on lobbyists and their money. Sometimes he invests weeks in only a couple of stories. Sometimes he goes days without writing a word. This way of covering Congress, he says, takes "you behind the overt events we used to cover incrementally and lets you tell descriptively what goes on behind the scenes." Adds Drinkard, "Getting a glimpse behind the curtains is worth more than watching what's going on up on the stage."

Meet the latest "evolution"-as its creators call it-of the venerable Associated Press. Going into its 150th year, the wire service, born of ruthless 19th-century competition to get the most news the fastest, is changing its ways.

Sure, insist AP managers, it still will deliver the farm reports, the sports scores, the tornado warnings, the spot story on breaking news from Beijing to Butte, Montana.

But they also tout a late 20th century version of the AP that offers more depth, context, innovation. News that's "relevant." Stories told with "compelling writing." Shoe-leather reporting buttressed by CAR, computer-assisted reporting.

The AP has hired its first writing coach. Its 'Poets' Corner" of legendary star writers is empty of all but one of the original poets, and a...