Steve Yelvington weighed in on the Google/AP deal the other day, and as usual, he’s got something good to add to the discussion. (We’ve previously discussed this here…)

Local news websites are under tremendous pressure to build audience. Having generic AP content isn’t an effective way to do that, so they’re turning to blogging, photo galleries, social networking tools and databases of local information.

At some point, wire copy is not merely of low value, it’s of negative value. Local sites are drowning their users with too much stuff, too many links. As Jakob Nielsen has said, every added link subtracts from the prominence of every other link. A cleanup is in order.

I hadn’t really considered the deal in that light. If the deal forces the papers to concentrate on their core competency, which is obviously the local, then perhaps the effect could be good. The problem remains that so many have cut so much from their local coverage though…