CNN has decided to end its 30-year-old relationship with the Associated Press (AP) so as to intensify its efforts to invest more into original reporting, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

In 2007, the 24-hours news station had strengthened its own news gathering operation by hiring 75 people, including 12 new correspondents. Next year, it began selling its own wire service, CNN Wires, to deliver a cheaper alternative to the AP. In 2009, it dropped the AP service on CNN.com and CNN Radio.

CNN Worldwide President, Jim Walton, in a memo said the current move to dissociate from AP will make CNN newsgathering the primary source of content for all of their platform and services.

He hinted at expanding the CNN Wires team and launching CNN Share -- an internal service to simplify the aggregating and sharing of editorial content across all platforms -- as well as a new alert system for breaking news.

Of late, AP has been under pressure to cut its fees. Financially strapped newspapers and other news organisations have been complaining about its prices, threatening to withdraw their businesses.