The Associated Press is said to be planning staff cuts. Customers and readers are up in arms over its drift away from hard news. CNN, meanwhile, is fat and happy, and getting moreso by the day, investing in free food, holograms and international staff. So there was probably more than a little jealousy behind AP chief Tom Curley's disdainful swipe at the cable network's plan for a "CNN Wire" to compete with AP.

Speaking before staff, the Times reports, Curley (pictured) said "any number of people" could have launched an AP competitor, not just CNN. He chalked up the network's recent financial success (an estimated $1.1 billion in revenue this year) to the election. And he said he wasn't going to egg the network on with insults, before doing just that:

“The current CNN wire, if you look at it truly is still, and remarkably, abysmally written,” he said. “However, they’re interviewing A.P. people, we know, and that can be transformed. And if you have enough money and you have enough ego and enough desire, you can fix that in a hurry.”

And while you can teach a CNN hack to write better, good luck finding an AP reporter who holds a candle to Anderson Cooper — the anchor and possible CNN Wire columnist — when it comes to emoting on NeNe Leakes' bosom or Lindsay Lohan's family.