How To Save The Newspapers, Vol. XII: Outlaw Linking

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/28/how-to-save-the-newspapers-vol-xii-outlaw-linking/

by vaksel • 17 years ago

29 29 17 years ago

dotcoma• 17 years ago

newspapers that think along these lines should just take their websites down, and stick to the print edition plus other non-linkable forms such as a kindle edition, an ipod edition, and adobe air reader edition etc.

for all the others, learning how to link themselves to other newspapers and blogs, i.e. learning to take part in the online conversation, is absolutely crucial if they want to have a chance of surviving.

brandnewlow6• 17 years ago

True story.

I show up 5 minutes late to a lunch/forum about the future of news here in Chicago featuring Carl Bernstein plus the editors of the Sun-Times, Tribune and other local publications. I find a seat at a table of youngsters and find out they're all undergrads at Northwestern's journalism program, where I earned an MSJ.

I introduce myself, tell them I run a news aggregator for local stuff. One turns to me.

"I hate what you do. You're ruining the industry."

"Wha?"

Intrigued, I try to figure out what she means through a series of increasingly specific questions about what she doesn't like until finally I ask the big one:

"Do you think it's wrong for a web site to link to another web site?"

"Yes. Unless they've paid the site they're linking to for the right to do so."

That explained everything. I'm not unsympathetic to her POV. She wants to be a reporter, and those jobs are increasingly hard to come by. She blames "the blogs" for this. I explained that there are many more opportunities out there for her to report and inform the public that didn't involve working for a newspaper. She wasn't interested. It always amazes me how reporters can be so clever and entrepreneurial in their reporting while being so darn conservative and narrow-minded in how they manage their careers.

old-gregg3• 17 years ago

I explained that there are many more opportunities out there for her to report and inform the public that didn't involve working for a newspaper.

... And still have enough resources (cash) to produce new, valuable information, as opposed to being a gossip outlet or just blogging about things you read elsewhere online?

If there are "many more opportunities" how come they're not obvious? Are there really many of them? Can you name a single operating "newspaper replacement"?

Assuming every nytimes.com in the world closes its doors tomorrow. What are you going to aggregate?

vaksel• 17 years ago

thats an unrealistic assumption, if it does happen, it'll be gradual, and he can easily switch from aggregating nytimes to some other web news source

brandnewlow6• 17 years ago

The problem is looking for a "newspaper replacement." That's limiting.

You could go report for a wire service covering a state capitol.

You could go report for one of the many B2B web sites and publications popping up to serve industries and audiences that actually have money to spend.

You could report for one of the many e-mail newsletter businesses that I know are thriving and growing.

You could cover real estate news for the blog of a realtor.

You could cover food news for the blog of a coalition of restaurants.

But if the only job that will make you happy is covering "important stuff" at a newspaper supported by advertising and classifieds that aims at a general audience and maintains a stance of complete objectivity and impartiality, you're closing the door on many opportunities that would employ the same skillset.

The reason these opportunities are not obvious is because people keep looking for something that works just like a newspaper. If it works just like a newspaper, it won't be a viable business.

If the NYTimes goes under, it'll be replaced by 100 blogs of varying quality and focus. Someone will be rewarded greatly for stepping in there and aggregating them.

Did you know there used to be dozens of newspapers in Chicago? Every immigrant group put out its own paper. Is it so crazy to think we might be returning to that model for a while?

alanthonyc• 17 years ago

If "every single newspaper" closed its doors tomorrow, they would be replaced, quickly and effectively by an as yet undefined alternative. This would be the case even in a microcosmic example, such as a small town as opposed to a whole country.

Necessity will breed innovation.

greyman2• 17 years ago

I have a question: How do you link to their articles? Do you write your own anchor text, or do you just take those from the website?

If you take their headline (or even portion of their article), they might feel that you do not give enough compensation back to them. Producing a headline is also a work, and good headline carry some actual content. So you just take that content and don't pay for it. You just provide a link, which cost you almost nothing.

This was just to describe how they might think about you.

brandnewlow6• 17 years ago

It's all UGC. If the user posts the same headline as on the original article, that's what appears. If they write their own, that's what appears.

It's just like sharing links on Facebook or Twitter.

stcredzero• 17 years ago

Do you think it's wrong for a web site to link to another web site?

Back in the late 90's, I was working for public broadcasting, and the mentality of management was that you needed permission to link to another website. They would get on the phone with the owners of the other website and ask. That is the sort of mentality you are dealing with. I suspect a disturbingly large fraction of the mainstream has this view.

brandnewlow6• 17 years ago

Not surprised at all by this. My site has a lot of contributors who have little to no experience on the web, and they often ask me if it's ok to include links to other web sites in their stories or encourage me to stop linking out to other sites so much. I tell them it's ok and actually important to send folks to relevant sites, but it seems a bit counter intuitive to some.

johnnybgoode• 17 years ago

She's trying to climb a falling ladder. I can understand why she's upset, but I'm not very sympathetic.

anamax2• 17 years ago

> "Do you think it's wrong for a web site to link to another web site?"

> "Yes. Unless they've paid the site they're linking to for the right to do so."

Did you ask her if she thinks that you should pay her before telling a friend how to get to the great article that she wrote, a way that lets her monetize said article as she sees fit? If she says yes, as her if she understands the question and whether she wants readers. If she says no, you ask her if she minds if you tell 10 strangers.

A link isn't content. It's a way to get content. It doesn't affect her ability to monetize her content in any way that she feels appropriate. Newspaper folk either don't understand that or ....

greyman2• 17 years ago

In my opinion what the newspaper websites really don't like is not linking, but quoting.

Quoting some idea from another source with attribution is a very common thing. But this practice has specific implications when applied to reported news. I saw the following practice on blogs like Huffington Post or news aggregators: they take headline and one or two paragraphs from a news article, provide a link to it, and optionally add their own content to it. Technically it is quoting with attribution, which is perfectly legal.

But as we know, the news articles are usually written in a dense form, and to produce just the headline and one paragraph is sometimes very expensive, for example when a real reporter had to go there and gather the facts.

And then, some blogger or aggregator just take it and gives back just a link - and the news websites doesn't feel that is an adequate compensation for the work needed to produce that headline and paragraph.

And, more often than not, the aggregator or blogger earned enough money to survive (since what he did is not that expensive), while the news outlet who did the reporting didn't earn enough to operate.

But of course, on the other side, it's not a fault of the blogger or aggregator that they didn't earned enough, and that's where the newspapers get it wrong. I just wanted to provide the perspective from the "other side".

zhyder• 17 years ago

"the aggregator or blogger earned enough money to survive (since what he did is not that expensive), while the news outlet who did the reporting didn't earn enough to operate."

Great point! This is why I'm worried about a future without NYTimes and other traditional news outlets. The most dangerous possibility is that there won't be any economic incentive left to do the original investigative reporting. But maybe we don't need any economic incentive anyway, and we'll get plenty of free news from the twitter-ers, casual bloggers, cellphone video uploaders and other common folk.

brandnewlow6• 17 years ago

I think new ways to fund investigative reporting will arise, and that they'll be just as problematic, ephemeral, and controversial as the current ones.

Obvious example: How deeply can an investigative reporter at NBC really probe into the affairs of General Electric, the company that owns it?

Similarly, if a bunch of local realtors got together and hired an investigative reporter to cover real estate, people would howl and moan about conflict of interest...but that person would probably dig up some great stories, just not stories about the companies funding him/her.

anamax2• 17 years ago

> In my opinion what the newspaper websites really don't like is not linking, but quoting.

They may not like quoting more than they don't like linking, but they are campaigning against linking (and quoting).

They're also arguing that they should be given an exclusive on information. In a recent example, they think that folks shouldn't be allowed to post that MJ died after reading about it from a "legit" on-line source.

Sam_Odio• 17 years ago

This is absurd. If a website wants to block linking it's easy: just use http_referer and/or dynamic urls.

Nobody does that because it's horrible business practice and a easy way to isolate yourself from the rest of the web. Regardless, we certainly don't need the government to enforce a behavior that individuals could easily adopt on their own.

naveensundar• 17 years ago

I read it as outlaw "thinking" the first time.

gojomo• 17 years ago

A law to outlaw linking without permission is unnecessary; they can already block traffic by 'referrer'.

That essentially no papers do so illustrates the problem with such a strategy: as long as one reasonable-substitute competitor allows inlinking, bloggers/aggregators don't care, and the anti-inlinking paper has only hurt itself.

What I think they really want is to outlaw all linking unless some cartel (rather than individual targets) approves. Then they can lock out all 'parasites' (in their view) from their newsgathering value.

You can see this true agenda in opinion pieces like the following:

"Newspapers need an antitrust exemption" http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/la-oe-rutten4-200...

"Laws that could save Journalism" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...

jamesbritt• 17 years ago

"That essentially no papers do so illustrates the problem with such a strategy: as long as one reasonable-substitute competitor allows inlinking, bloggers/aggregators don't care, and the anti-inlinking paper has only hurt itself."

Or they really have no understanding of the technology. Every so often some site complains about "deep linking" (the misnomer itself indicate their level of cluelessness). They seek out legal sanctions when some simple site coding would fix the problem faster and cheaper.

colins_pride• 17 years ago

Yet in a blog post last week on the future of newspapers, he concludes there may be only one way to save the industry

Hint: if you have to change the law to protect an industry, the industry is a dinosaur. You are not really saving it, merely delaying the inevitable at great global expense. The proper course of action lies in that eastern technique known as letting go

mjgoins• 17 years ago

Could someone explain what would motivate a newspaper to limit other sites linking to it? I can't think of a single reason it would be harmful to their business.

Dilpil• 17 years ago

This is indeed the problem: newspapers have no understanding of the business they engage in.

sutro• 17 years ago

This linking debate is analogous to the perennial protectionism versus free trade debate.

How To Save The Newspapers, Vol. XII: Outlaw Linking

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