Associated Press, known for its strong stance against competitors, especially online, has revised its policy on crediting other organizations and even bloggers when due.

The news association has been wary of crediting sources that are not part of AP not to mention pure online sources like blogs.

This has now changed and the new policy is to give credit to anyone breaking a story or providing facts used by AP reporters.

"In the age of the Web, the sourcing and reliability of information has become ever more crucial. So it is more important than ever that we be consistent and transparent in our handling of information that originated elsewhere than our own reporting," the AP said in a letter to its members.

The AP refers to two types of situations. If AP reporters use facts and information from other sources they must always credit those sources, regardless if they are competitors or even blogs.

The AP has been especially critical of bloggers and has fought against those that would use any portion of a story or just the subject in a post, even if they linked back to the source.

"We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it’s U.S. based; and whether or not it's an AP member or subscriber," the letter explained.

The new policy also covers breaking news. The AP says that reporters should always credit the source of a story even if the AP report ads significantly more info.

This last part is interesting because, at the same time, the AP is fighting to institute the hot news doctrine, which aims to give a sort of monopoly on a story to the organization that first reported on it.

The new policy goes a long way towards getting the AP in line with other news organizations, even traditional ones, but it remains to be seen if this is truly a sign of change. [via TNW]