AP chief Tom Curley says quality will rule . . . after ‘brutal’ competition thins the herd.

Competition will be brutal. New will statify into 150 word briefs and brief but brainy analyses. And quality will rule. That sums up the nuggets I found in a speech that Associated Press chief executive Tom Curley made in November to a group of students on a business fellowship at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University:

“Those of us in content must accept today’s reality. The marketplace has flipped. For the last couple hundred years, content has carried ads. In today’s Internet, ads carry content . . . the structure for advertising is changing from mass to targeted . . . . When you drop a cookie on someone in the digital space, the ads you serve that viewer become up to 200 times more valuable . . .

“We must change how we charge for content . . . tiered pricing with premiums for timeliness or comprehensiveness is one option . . .

T”the inverted pyramid is dead . . .  We need the bulletins and the brains. The bulletins are the first 150 words, getting the news out fast, in conversational radio fashion . . . The brains are the people who can add real value whether through perspective, deeper reporting or great writing . . .

“We are approaching an amazing point in the history of media. Quality will rule. With traffic to destination websites flattening and new distribution making all content accessible, we’re entering a new era of brutal competition. The best will stand out because they will be sought out . . .”

Or so we hope!