Ryan from Dead Parrot Society offers an innocent explanation for the AP‘s decision to provide one version of its stories to online media, and another (more spiced up) version to online media.

When I earlier mentioned this new policy on my blog, I speculated that the AP might be doing an end run around blogger criticism of its more biased stories. Ryan — who runs a great blog (and did good work getting to the bottom of the flap over the Paul Bremer farewell speech) — says I’m wrong. He says the policy arises from a simple desire on the part of the AP to give a fresh opening to stories that readers may have already seen online.

The best evidence that Ryan is right is that, as he explains, the “optional” and more colorful (and possibly more biased) stories end up on the Internet anyway — though, he admits, they are not as widely circulated online.

I don’t necessarily accept at face value the AP‘s proffered reason for a change like this. But Ryan’s explanation is worth your consideration. I certainly give him more credibility than I give anonymous bomb-throwers, like Ryan’s boss Ken Sands my rude commenter named “Reader.”