How Gawker Ripped Off My Newspaper Story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/31/AR2009073102476_pf.html

by fallentimes • 17 years ago

49 32 17 years ago

fallentimes4• 17 years ago

I used the title tag (How Gawker Ripped Off My Newspaper Story) instead of the actual title (The Death of Journalism [Gawker Edition]) as I found the latter to be too sensationalistic.

alaskamiller2• 17 years ago

I submitted this earlier (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=736887) with the title Death of Journalism because I felt it was what he wanted. I also submitted the multipart article since I want the ad revenue accounted for.

fallentimes4• 17 years ago

Oh sorry - I didn't see it.

I'm surprised the original headline didn't receive more votes.

JacobAldridge2• 17 years ago

Washington Post journalist writes about a coach who helps integrate younger people and their tech expectations into the workplace.

Gawker writes about it.

Journalist (well, Editor first) gets peeved, and writes a massive rant at Gawker and technology in his profession.

If I were to tweet this, it would be #irony.

fallentimes4• 17 years ago

I love how the journalist originally treated the Gawker post as a badge of honor.

aasarava• 17 years ago

If it's ironic because expectations of how news blogs gather news and conduct business are much lower than that of traditional news organizations, then that's actually quite troubling. I'd say it's completely fair to expect attribution when one's work is referenced -- even on blogs -- no?

The news paper medium may be dying, but that doesn't mean organizations using the new medium get to ignore the practices of good journalism and of just-plain-fair business.

JacobAldridge2• 17 years ago

I'm all for fair attribution (ex-journalist here), and I'm not convinced that didn't happen in this case (though happy to accept it was borderline at best).

But given the Gawker article sent more people to his story than any other single source, save one, AND that it was an article on the benefit of integrating generations and therefore technology, for the editor and then the writer to get peeved is ironic.

jlangenauer• 17 years ago

I think it's a reasonable rant. Look at it this way: which one - the WP reporter, or Gawker - has created more value? Which one has added (slightly, as in all these things) more to the sum total of human knowledge?

Perhaps economics of the former (Washington Post) model is on its way out. But if it is, might we all not be the poorer for it?

fallentimes4• 17 years ago

The new models could look a lot like Politico:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/wolff200...

alanthonyc• 17 years ago

"If Google wanted to own Washington coverage, well, all it would have to do is take the six or seven journalists who are really producing stuff— remember, reporters don’t make shit —and put them in one place and overnight Google would own Washington...Well, why couldn’t we do that?"

This concept would apply to other parts of the newspaper business. Craigslist did it to classified ads, ESPN to sports, now Politico with politics. I'm sure others will come out over time as well.

rms• 17 years ago

I tried submitting that again.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=738925

kingkawn• 17 years ago

Bottomless contempt for the genuine concern from people about how the internet will affect their livelihood is not the best way to encourage support and appreciation for the value that tech (and its creators) can generate.

After hundreds of articles posted here about old media struggling, followed by thousands of comments deriding the old for not realizing how old and lame they are, its time to think of ways to ease this transition rather than being contemptuous as it guts another industry.

bkovitz3• 17 years ago

Washington Post pays for all the time and hard work to put together a real story. Gawker reduces it to snark, collects the ad money.

This is a problem. Real journalism is in big economic trouble.

If there were ever an opportunity for some entrepreneurial problem-solving, this is it.

http://paulgraham.com/good.html

aristus• 17 years ago

Well, the newspaper has been in trouble for a lot longer than the internet has been mainstream. There was a huge wave of consolidation in the 70s and 80s, remember. Also remember that most newspaper revenue used to come from classifieds. More importantly, most of the readers came for things other than hard news: sports, stock tickers, astrology, comics, etc.

It real sucks to say this so bluntly, as my wife and many friends are journalists, but "real" journalism is, and always has been, a kind of prestige side-show -- like Honda's racing team or Microsoft Research.

bkovitz3• 17 years ago

I was not aware that classified ads used to be the main source of revenue. I thought that most of the 20th century, paid advertising (the kind with graphics) was the main source. I'm curious. Do you know something I could read to find out more about this?

Regardless, as you say, the solid news was never the main draw. It looks like journalism has been using a weird, indirect revenue model since long before the "new economy".

omouse2• 17 years ago

This is an opportunity for the Washington Post actually. They can cut out the middleman (Gawker) and supply a slim version of the same story. This would let them cover multiple "angles" and recoup their expenses by having all the ad revenue coming to a Washington Post-owned publisher.

dtf• 17 years ago

This is a fantastic point. "Lite" news is very popular - it's just a factor of attention span and the time people have to read an article. I guess that many of the people who read the Gawker story would not have been willing to invest the time to read the original article in depth. What value has Gawker added? They've sensationalized it slightly, and summarized the juicy bits. The originator of the story is actually in a perfect position to do the same and appeal to a different market - if they can stomach it.

swilliams2• 17 years ago

Ok, for the sake of discussion, say newspapers are dead and gone in 5 years. What happens to places like gawker? Will they go out and do their own investigating? Certain blogs have some "real" sources, but they seem to rely more on traditional media for the base story.

As far as I know, the whole nature of blogs like them are to take an existing story and put their own spin on it. I enjoy various blogs (even some in the gawker stable), but if and when newspaper die off, what will they do for content?

jacquesm• 17 years ago

There are two levels 'blogger', one that creates content and does a pretty good job of it at that, another that does copy-paste with minor rewrites.

If their original source (the newspapers) dries up my guess is they will start to feed of the other bloggers. This is already happening to some extent.

bkovitz3• 17 years ago

If newspaper organization and culture are killed off, it will be hard to regenerate them.

gaius• 17 years ago

Well that's what blog means, "web log", i.e. a journal of things its owner has found on the web and finds interesting. No interesting articles on the web -> no blogs.

mtw• 17 years ago

blogs like engadget or niche blogs written by experts already do original reporting (going to conferences, taking pictures, etc.) They'll be more of them when the Post or the NYT won't be there.

varjag• 17 years ago

Ah, gadgetry and latest Agile scoop is fine and fun, but would your average blogger do reporting when next Chechnya flares up, or do time-consuming and hazardous research on mafia connections in his southern-Italian hometown?

Reporting of this kind takes time, equipment, connections, travel, bribes - which all translates to money that have to appear somehow.

sauce71• 17 years ago

It is a reason for concern the prospect of losing real journalism. I have stopped using adblockers. Please stop linking to the print version of articles.

jaggs• 17 years ago

To say that this is a lame piece is an understatement. He complains that although Gawker linked to his piece twice or more times, and drove significant traffic to his article, that somehow the online world is driving newspapers to the wall. He complains that the extra traffic gave The Post no extra revenue? Oh c'mon, get real, whose fault is that? The real kicker is the fact that newspapers and the MSN in general are all engaged in a constant war to steal each others content and make it their own, they've been doing it for decades. And that's a fact. This article is pathetic, and really shows the desperate state of the MSM.

chanux• 17 years ago

Isn't that gawker media & other similar blogs always do (more or less)?

tarkin2• 17 years ago

The weakest and central part of the article:

"More readers are better than fewer, of course. But those referring links -- while essential to our current business model -- aren't doing much, ultimately, to stop our potential slide into layoffs and further contraction."

Not financially helping--arguable in itself--the Washington post is not equal to financially hindering it.

"Worse, some media experts believe that Gawker and its ilk, with their relatively low overhead, might be depressing online ad revenue across the board. That makes it harder for news-gathering operations to recoup their expenses."

This is simply conjecture--a shame since this is the crux of his argument. I could equally say Gawker may be giving the WP article more page hits (something he admits), and thus revenue, and certainly more general public exposure. And in return for this service, Gawker gets ad revenue itself.

After these two weak points he then goes on to ask how we can save newspapers from online blogs and non-newspaper news sites, without proving these are hindering newspapers.

This whole argument seems very similar to the music industry's argument that online piracy is destroying music. Studies have shown, however, that piracy can actually increase music sales. And so it's not clear cut that blogging and non-newspaper news sites are hindering traditional newspapers.

We need to prove blogs and non-newspaper new sites are causing newspapers' decline before moving on to ask how we should stop these menaces to traditional newspapers.

How Gawker Ripped Off My Newspaper Story

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