WebProNews

thanks for its article.. very helpful.. :)

This guy can't be serious. Rich Ord's inexplicable proclamation that AP is dead because blogs are alive is the equivalent of saying "now that I have a car I won't need gas because I'm growing ferns in my back yard." Huh?

In addition to suffering an inflated sense of his own value in the paradigm of new media (his distinction seems to be his ability to write an html link to the work of others, aka steal the quality content crafted by professionals at major news organizations
around the world), Ord also seems to feel well qualified to apply his keen analysis to the following journalistic observations:

"This model (AP) cannot compete with bloggers who write for free and often live where the news is.”

So, by Ord’s reasoning, if my car breaks down on Sesame Street, Big Bird is uniquely qualified to replace the transmission. And of course, should Big Bird happen to indeed be qualified to fix my transmission, he should do it for free. Because only the guys who BUILT the car are entitled to “sell” their intellectual property. Somehow the folks that mine the oil and make the gas or fix the transmission should provide it gratis.

Perhaps Ord has the time on his hands to interview and source events in his neighborhood -- FOR FREE -- and do a MUCH better job of it than a trained professional. If this is true, I suspect it might be that he is earning his living on the back of a different kind of paid skill or intellectual property.

Ord further adds: “Additionally these bloggers are often experts, not just reporters looking in..."

I am wondering how many so-called "experts" can actually tell two sides of a story without bias AND do so in a way that is CLEAR for the average reader? I am wondering who gets to decide and corroborate whether or not said expert is, in fact an expert? I am
wondering how all this works in that land of milk and honey, of free content that flows in a world where there is no need to pay anyone at all for the content that ATTRACTS eyeballs and therefore revenue.

Yeah, that's fair, Rich, why don't we let a bunch of geeks who can write something starting with href and point to a piece a journalism make ALL the money from the ads. It’s not like it’s the CONTENT that attracts those paying eyeballs. It’s not as if CONTENT forms part of the INFRASTRUCTURE.

He also states: "News is now being reported by the news makers themselves."

Does anybody see a problem with this? Hello? Heard of investigative journalism? How 'bout that Watergate...just what do you suppose Dirty Dick would have blogged about that one? I wonder what our pharmaceutical companies would write about efficacy and research. Would you bet your life on it? Do you suppose this society that wants its fries in 60 seconds is willing to sort through 1,000 comments in an attempt to divine the self-righting truth of a situation? Wouldn’t counting the “newsmakers” as the “news source” be the equivalent of “New Media” throwing the proverbial baby (Old Media’s checks and balances) out with the bathwater?

Unlike Ord, I’m not imposing an artificial, adversarial bias on “Old Media” versus the “2.0 free-for-all” that is the blogging public discourse forum of the century. The web is truly a wonderful vehicle to deepen the dimension of public discourse. In Neil Postman’s words, we are indeed “Amusing Ourselves to Death.”

But it’s not free, and it can’t be free in a capitalist society. And so long as the world wide web is trapped in a capitalist society, intellectual property will continue to be subject to commoditization. Professional content will continue to trump the work of “volunteer” mediaphiles who don’t know what’s wrong the sentence that reads: “Does the AP not realize that winning this suit would result in less (sic) readers of their (sic) stories?”

( Try: “fewer readers” and “its stories” And for the record, AP doesn’t have readers, per se. It sells its content to news organizations who have readers. Having fewer “FREE” readers is not a bad thing in the news business. Having “PAID” readers would be the goal, thank you very much!)

Perhaps one day we will live in Ord’s land of milk and honey where ALL intellectual property and billable time will be free as a bird, including: The CODE that underlies NewsLinx and other aggregate sources, the BANDWIDTH required to operate the theft of IP, the TIME it takes to post, edit, deflame, and prevent hacks in the blogosphere…

In the mean time, intellectual property is intellectual property fair and square. Just as every programmer deserves compensation for his or her work, so too do the generators of vetted, professional journalistic content. All other forms of content are merely opinion, rumor, or worse, spin.

If AP needs to cause entities such as NewsLinx to pony up a license fee to use its content and if the aggregators don’t like this new cost of doing business, let them invest the resources to acquire the editing staff to manage the sourcing and collection and creation of the content. Go ahead and give that a whirl – you’ll be pretty quick to determine the difference between the caliber of pro content and the “free easy” information that travels the typical blogosphere.

AP is alive and will continue to exist in some form or another because it is far more economical to syndicate content and, guess what, CONTENT IS KING. More importantly, the principle tenets of the “old news order” will be our salvation in the face of information chaos. Together, the new and old news paradigms can give us meaningful discourse across multiple channels. Gleeful, myopic proclamations such as “AP is Dead” are the offspring of a deeply twisted logic that ultimately collapses upon itself.

Call me a dinosaur if you like, but I still enjoy that first cup of joe and my morning newspaper. Yes, I read news online as well and read a few bloggers too but the thought of starting my day at the computer with my coffee is just asking for and techno disaster. At least with a paper disaster I am only out about 25 cents, not so with coffee across the keyboard. I think the AP will be around for a while yet.

Blogs are a joke. They can't be relied apon for accurate information. They are mostly people who are bored or pushing an agenda.

AP is NOT dead. Not by a long shot. To say that AP is dead because of bloggers is to say we need no more opera singers because we all can sing. AP reporters are, hopefully, educated and dedicated. And they have the time and resources to investigate a story. It's very different than someone who may or may not have any actual knowledge or experience, blathering away about something they may know nothing about. There will always be room in the world for experts.

Mr. Rich Ord:

After reading your article I was a little torn. I am in the opinion that change is both refreshing and good for news organizations of all types, AP included of course. However, I am not certain that we should completely rely on average John Doe to deliver adequate news coverage. Of course I may have a slightly prejudice attitude as I am a Freelance Photographer.

My greatest fear is that my next door neighbor will write the story, and his son with his trusty digital camera will attempt to visually document it. It seems that today's technology has turned a large portion of society into "experts" of just about anything overnight. I can tell you from personal experience that the introduction of the digital camera to the general public has been a curse to many photographers around the globe. Suddenly everyone has an uncle or cousin that has a digital camera and will gladly photograph their wedding or special event. Why hire a Photographer when you have that available for free? I don't think it's necessary for me to point out the many obvious reasons. I fear it will end up the same with journalism of all types. Why would I trust an article written by John Doe from Nowhere, Kansas who just had a hard day at the office? Is he an experienced, trained, professional journalist? No thank you! I'll take the seasoned veteran reporter any day of the week. I guess I can expect the morning newspaper to soon "evolve" into a few pages written, printed, and delivered by Floyd the barber from Small-town, USA. Why stop there? We need to have a band of "journalist do-gooders" with video cameras and microphones ready to move on a story in a moments notice. Then we can bump the likes of CNN out of the way while we're at it. Think about it, television reporters have been around for far too long so we might as well consider them "old media".

Let's do the world a favor and think about the long term effects before we hastily condemn an entire industry to extinction.

Respectfully,

Concerned Freelancer

From one who has a foot comfortably in either generation, Pre-Blogging and Post, I can offer that News is News, not blogging.

Despite the fact that I am a professional writer in some aspects, any one of my blogs offers so much personal conjecture and speculation disguised as fact (sometimes by virtue of passion alone) that I may actually leave out all relevant facts.

I simply wouldn't trust what's on a blog as newsworthy, and this is MY OWN content setting the precedent.

I may be out of line in assuming that many other bloggers are like me, but I think that's fairly safe, and I wouldn't trust their reporting of the news any further than I could slapshoot it.

Dig the writing though Rich, keep it up.

Dumb, dumb, soooo dumb!

Ass-ociated Press surely has got it wrong, as ya say, suing over links!

Hoo-hoo, haa-haaa!

Not so sure I am in complete agreement that old media like AP is dead yet.

In it's present form, sure.

But if AP and the others wake up and stop pretending the internet does not exist then watch out.

Instead of suing over links, APOM (AP+old media) should be actively welcoming, chasing them and, yes, promoting them.

Why?

Like global warming, today's tech typhoons are only only going to grow in frequency and severity. Huge great sucking whirlwinds of information slurped up and randomly scattered all over the show - blogs, RSS feeds, podcasts, youtubes and every other bit of digital debri you care to name.

Amongst this information insanity, increasing numbers of users will turn to sites that offer internet for idiots - simple, concise, easily accessible overviews of complicated issues written for an average age of 14.

And who, my swaggering fellow bloggers, are best positioned to do this - and have been for the last 400 years or so?

Yep, right again, organisations like AP. Ooooolllllld media. You know, like, journalists and stuff.

Trained information professionals that are familiar with plucking headlines from vast data flows on a daily - stop the press! - HOURLY - basis.

Sheesh, radio journalists have been updating minute by minute for nigh on a century now.

As a journo meself, I start researching issues by referring to established sites like the BBC for a "generally accepted" final version of events, then work backwards from there.

Sure, old media watchdogs are hopelessly compromised by attack dogs from the whole military corporate complex, their political lapdog friends and legacy issues like heroic reporting - being the all-knowing, all seeing voice of wisdom.

Expect that to change when the bean counters realise there is gold in them thar hills, but only if they stay credible as independent information prospectors.

Bloggers will push old media debate from see-hear-do-no-evil towards gutsy examination of the causes, not just the symptoms, of modern ills.

Having to make this leap will greatly weaken the hold advertisers and owners have over old media because those APOMs that ignore what happens out in blogland will get left behind with the buggy whip manufacturers, spin doctors and copyright lawyers.

AP is dead? Killed by bloggers? Maybe, but for journalists, the party is just getting started.

There is a lot to be said for the objectivity of professional journalist. Will an insider uncover all sides of story in which they have a vested interest? I am skeptical about trusting a "news maker's" account of an event or point of view on an issue. I, for one, hope that professional news organizations remain viable and free to report the whole story.

The reality of business modules such as AP dying out, of paid press (online access, at least for now) dying out is undeniable.

The main question is - would a world devoid of thousands of journalists working for news agencies be a better and more reliable world?

Well, having previously in my life worked as a photo-journalist and journalist in war-zones, I have seen into the world of media a little bit.

To say all journalists are intelligent, know what's going on when they briefly visit a place they are sent to cover, speek truth and are objective would be nonsense.

Some are well trained, honest and really wish to find out what is really going on.
However, knowledge and insight always depend upon time and circumstances.

By the latter I mean things like the books and newspapers one reads or your teachers, preachers and local people who you know and whom influence you with their view and version. And even the country where you live - the general public opinion "politically correct and in vogue, government media control levels, the journalists' media-employer sponsor interests (they need to be profitable by selling advertisement and don't want to spit into the well they drink from).

What ends up on TV and papers in some cases is "pre-ordered" with an angle to the story that's requested. I've seen this in Bosnia , Chechnia and in other places. A journalist would arrive to Grozney, Chechnia, for example, oblivious to the hard economic facts behind the Chechen conflict (in this example, it's Russia's petrolium movement control and monetization interests), since the soft colorful story would be "more easily understood" by their leading American newspaper.

Journalists gets paid a nice fee for traveling to a war zone for 2 days to write about what she researched (others like her wrote about): Wild men branding rifles and wearing a Bogart hat roaming the exotic streets. This obviously looks dangerous, romantic and exotic to an American woman who doesn't live in a war zone.
I voiced my little Q: Don't you have gun issues in USA schools? But she , an esteemed writer only hurried off to photograph some of these guys, write her know-it-all magazine piece and hurry to next place.

In Bosnia, for another example, I saw US TV journalists from some big networks, who had to produce their 1-2 minute pieces according to their editors back home demands: do it about this or that. Regardless if this was not the full picture or the reality. Every word had to be approved in advance.

Democracy? Freedom of speech? Think again.
Paid journalism is sometimes like paid blogging- sponsors & advertisers call the shots.

Journalists are only humane and they can get a prejudice to a place or take sides if they happen to fall in love with someone from one side of the conflict.
Often they end up reading the same books about a place they are going to, few have time for time-consuming research as they are constantly on the move and need to produce stories every day.

I met journalists who complained their TV or local media refused to publish stories they had and wanted an ordered specific angle for their coverage, for political reasons.

Nonetheless, to say all are dispensable would also be a mistake.

Who says everything that's blogged is true? Sometimes it is necessary to have an outsider's view or a professional, unemotionaly uninvolved input as well. Other angels.

I've also had the fortune to meet and work with excellent and expert journalists, though, these usually spend much time in one place/area of their reporting.

RSS feeds, Blogs etc are great and important to hear view from every aspect and angle, not merely depend upon some employed journalists for information.

I think a web 2.0 free content style of media is the future.
What if journalists get sacked because AP and other such news networks go bust?

A new biz model would evolve.

This needs some brainstorming...

Excuse me, but these "experts" you cite... do you mean the teenagers and bored adults who bitch and moan on the internet after reading newspaper articles or seeing somebody's car get hit by a fire truck?

I'm one of these people, and I'm clear that I am not a reliable source.

I do not have time to go and interview people, get all the facts, know EXACTLY what happened, and then write it in a powerful way that gets people interested.

If the Associated Press is so dead, then why is it not "Joe Hobo, random blogger" in the byline? When I read the paper, I see "The Associated Press" in that place.

It can be argued that suing for linking is a little outrageous. I get that. But the AP is far from dead.

This is a dangerous road to go down by suggesting the replacement of real news services by those of bloggers and untrained "journalists" who don't understand the mechanics of the trade, nor do they understand simple things like libel.

The fact that major news agencies have cited or sourced blogs as reference in legitimate news stories is just plain lazy journalism. It has to stop.

And because some blog sites have been cited in legitimate news stories we, as an industry, are continuing to erode our credibility -- in turn transfering that credibility to sources that should never have received such authority.

If John Doe decides to expound on the private life of some public figure without any credible source to back it up save opinion, those typed words on a web page will be actionable at some point.

It's my belief that while the Internet has had no real rules or regulations, that is changing. I offer the story of the guy in Ohio who took his ex girlfriend to court because she put images of his new girlfriend up on a porn site. And she was found guilty. Responsible. Culpable.

Much like media is today every time it puts something into print or on the airwaves.

Without culpability anyone can write anything. Without some kind of safety net, some kind of responsibility to the truth, enforced legally or through ethics, how will the general public know what is real and what is not? Further eroding the credibility of a once-honorable profession.

As for news feeds, who decides what is news and what isn't? You. What you leave out (articles you don't post to your site) is equally misleading as putting up a series of articles that reaffirm an agenda. Yours.

This article really made me ill. Only because of the implications of what you are saying (and perhaps naively not realizing) and the erosion of responsibility to the public laid firmly in the hands of some anonymous typist.

Preaching to the choir is fine, but I can't see bloggers getting out of their chairs and blogging riots, wars, famine zones, the NYSE, political speeches, etc **on a consistently reliable basis**.

Sure, the Baghdad Blogger was an interesting data point during the invasion, but he wasn't going to replace the embedded journos.

I'd love to see a posting volume timeline at Feedburner or similar, where we'd find that the volume drops when college football (replace with your favourite diversion) is on - sorry, no news today, we are busy.

The AP-Moreover suit threatens the web wherever snippeting is involved, particularly the search engines. That is a bigger, but different problem.