Posted on 12/02/2009 6:17:04 AM PST by steve-b
The Huffington Post is one of those aggregation Web sites criticized by media titan Rupert Murdoch yesterday. And its response to his statement that practices by those sites amount to content theft: Enough of the whining and finger pointing.
Here's Arianna Huffington's post in response to Murdoch: She said the News Corp. chairman just doesn't get the new Web media model. Murdoch and Huffington were among those at a media star-studded event at the Federal Trade Commission on the future of newspapers. The FTC said its workshop was meant to consider ways the federal government could play a role in supporting the ailing newspaper industry....
"I thought this would be a good time to take a look at Murdoch's increasingly bellicose war against new media sites that aggregate the news, the increasingly desperate revenue models being discussed for online news, and what, in fact, needs to be done to ensure that journalism will not only survive, but thrive," she writes....
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com ...
As much as we complain about the MSM we are dependent on those organizations that collect the news. Those organizations are the MSM. If the MSM dies then who will be the "news collectors"? Who will have the reporters stationed in Washington and around the world telling us what is going on?
I don't like the MSM any better than anyone else. I wish they were, as a group, more conservative. But, as Bill Clinton might say, what is, is. No MSM. No news to talk about. We cannot all be aggregators.
So Murdoch has a point. He is a smart guy and if the MSM continues to decline as is likely we may well be heading for a day when we are going to have to subscribe to news sources that we are used to getting for free. And those news sources will be more scarce. And the possibility that Congress will tighten up the currently loose requirements on "Fair Use" is (IMHO) increasing. Guys like Murdoch can and very likely will work to accelerate that movement.
>> As much as we complain about the MSM we are dependent on those organizations that collect the news.
Why must we be dependent on them? Technology has advanced to the point where anyone with an iPhone can be a reporter, anywhere in the world.
What’s missing (at least to my knowledge) is a distributed, “open source” virtual newsdesk that would replace AP / UPI.
The whole subject doesn’t make me nervous, it makes me giddy with excitement! The back of the leftist broadcast information monopoly is soon to be broken! Hooray!
That sounds good but look around. There is actually very little of this going on. This while most of us carry around a phone with a built in videocam or at least a camera. Yes it's possible. No it's not happening to any great extent. Look at YouTube. The political stuff is mostly vid-captures of Fox News and MSNBC and the like. Very little original stuff. Likewise the news. Yes we got good stuff from Iran. That's only because the normal news sources were not available. But the quality was terrible.
I actually hope you are right but I doubt it. OTOH as the old media die there may be new media arise to fill the gaps. But those new media will have to be profitable or they too will die. It's the lack of profits that is killing the old media not, as we would like to believe, their overwhelmingly liberal bias. That contributes but it's the money that is doing them in.
Actually, they are dependent on us for free advertising and click throughs.
That's true. But it is looking like there isn't enough of that to support the number of news sources that are currently around. Can the NYT survive as a web-only news source. Perhaps but not with anything like the staff that they currently have collecting and writing the news stories. There just isn't the revenue stream from "clicks" to support it. Now that is a good thing since it's the NYT. But what if they all die?
You are correct. Moments ago, I posted on my blog a news report of our local School Board meeting from last night. I was there.
LincolnParishNewsOnline.wordpress.com
What’s missing (at least to my knowledge) is a distributed, “open source” virtual newsdesk that would replace AP / UPI.
I would humbly suggest that is precisely what is FRee Republic. If it ain't posted here, it ain't news!
"I would humbly suggest that is precisely what is FRee Republic. If it ain't posted here, it ain't news! "
Exactly. Free Republic is The Virtual Newsdesk" for me. But it doesn't generate news, at least not very often. Rathergate was the exception and was great fun. But the facts are the facts. We are more interested in what goes on at a White House briefing than we are at the local PTA meeting. Somebody has to be at that briefing. And they have to be paid. Collecting news is expensive. Posting it on FR is cheap. That's a problem.
>> That sounds good but look around. There is actually very little of this going on. &etc
You make some good points, but they’re static, not forward-looking.
Yes, if you view a snapshot of the current situation one might conclude that not much of this going on. But in addition to the underground reporting from Iran that you brought up, I would respectfully offer two other examples as counterpoints.
1) When Bambi gave his fundraiser in the San Francisco mansion during the 2008 presidential campaign, the reporting on it was accomplished by a “non-professional”. It didn’t sway the election, but that one piece of reporting had a lot of influence. We’re still joking about “bitter gun and bible clingers”, aren’t we? Look for more of that sort of thing to happen.
2) Look around at the Climategate news. It’s virtually ALL internet reporting. Here, we see the reverse of what you complain about re: politics on Youtube. Literally ALL of the “big news outlets” are merely rehashing and parroting what has been uncovered and written about in blogs on the internet.
Can you deny that if Climategate results in a world backing off of a multitrillion dollar fraud and income redistribution scheme, that would be a HUGE win for the “alternative press”? I’d say that’s a LOT happening, already!
It won’t happen quickly that the MSM fades in prominence and the alternative press takes over, nor will it happen suddenly. But I submit that it’s already underway, and the MSM are sealing their fate by failing to actually discover and report the news themselves. Alternative news gatherning and aggregation *will* increase, and someday dominate. It may take years, but I bet it happens in my lifetime (I’m over 50 btw).
FRegards
>> I would humbly suggest that [a “virtual newsdesk” or newsfeed] precisely what is FRee Republic.
I have something in mind that’s a little different from Free Republic (and other portals). But it’s a half-baked idea so I can’t do a very good job of articulating it.
On the other hand, who says there’s only one way to skin the news aggregation kitteh? So you are absolutely right, and I humbly agree — FR is one working model of an “alternative” (to AP/UPI/MSM) news aggregator, and a successful one at that!
I’m interested in your comments to my post #9 too — forgot to put you in the address. I’m intrigued by the whole concept of (for lack of a better term) “open news gathering & distribution”, although unlike you I’m a little light in the “knowledge and insight” department. :-)
FRegards
Fregards
The NY Times tried to hide what they they thought was valued content behind a paid subscription wall. They dropped the wall and made the content freely available again.
Their product is not as desirable as say, satellite sports networks that people will pay big bucks for. Folks have a hard time coughing up fifty cents or even a dollar for a print edtion of a daily paper. They don't want to pay a penny for the online content because it's not worth it to them.
They need new advertising strategies. Folks will put up with advertising. We always do.
You have a point.
But stories like Climategate, like Rathergate, are made for the Net. The data gets posted and the Net Goes To Work analyzing it, commenting on it, testing it, confirming it. But most news isn't like that. Most news requires reporters and writers and desks and computers and healthcare. That costs money.
Maybe Kristinn is right. Maybe we do need new advertising models. Time will tell. But I expect at the minimum to see a consolidation of news sources available to us. That's not a good thing.
With my blog I cover local stuff. It’s something I can do myself and I can make a difference.
Here in Louisiana, the Legislature and its committee meetings are webcast, so anyone who is diligent enough can do “news reports” of that body.
There are several bloggers here in Louisiana who already do some of this. They are must reads, if you want to really know what is happening. The newspapers are less influential by the day here in this state. I don’t even bother with TV news anymore.
The same is happening nationally.
About local blogging:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/216703
Bloggers across the country are obsessively chronicling small-town life. Is Maplewood, N.J., ready for its own Bob Woodward?
aggregate the news = steal content, Ariana.
Ariana would be nothing without Soros money.
You're right - - if not for the crack investigative journalists in the "mainstream" Democrat newsrooms, we would never have found out that "global warming" was a brazen hoax all along, probably the most massive and expensive hoax in history.
Uh..
Ariana would be nothing without gay ex-husband's money.
And then there are stories like "the intern scandal" that Newsweak tried to spike.
Thanks to Drudge and the new media, a lying, criminal President was impeached and disbarred.
It's not news, it's not truth, it's anti-America propaganda.
One other point to consider.
The Dinosaur Media (broadcast print and electronic) always thought they had a monopoly on CONTENT (news).
They never did.
What they had a virtual monopoly on was MEANS OF DISTRIBUTION. And they did because of the expense of building and operating that distribution system.
Think printing presses, fleets of delivery trucks and newspaper carriers and paper mills to produce the paper.
Think giant microwave relay systems and satellites and transmitters and broadcast towers and studios.
Along came the World Wide Web. All that “stuff” is no longer necessary.
All gone now - gone with the wind...
Good point. tku
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.