THE BLOGGING JOURNALIST

Maybe Google Should Insist on Research Accounts for Newspapers

“As the rhetoric over how Google “rips-off” newspapers, magazines and other print publishers continues, a thought occurred to me this weekend,” observes Danny Sullivan over at his personal blog Daggle. “Perhaps Google should charge publications whose reporters tap into the service to research their stories? Perhaps that might underscore, especially for the Associated Press, the absurdity of trying to charge for the mere right to link to content and summarize what stories are about.”

I totally agree with Danny, who is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He has much more to say in “Do Newspapers Owe Google “Fair Share” Fees For Researching Stories? ”

By the way, I also agree with Jeff Jarvis that Google should end its agreement with the AP, which earns the wire service millions of dollars. But that’s not enough. The AP wants special treatment. See “Google: Drop the AP first.”

Technorati Tags: Danny Sullivan,Daggle,Associated Press,Google

Thomas Crampton: My Entire IHT Journalism Career Has Been Erased

Former New York Times and International Herald Tribune (IHT) correspondent Thomas Crampton is using his blog to express his outrage at New York at brass who, according to Crampton, erased the archives of the IHT and his entire journalistic career at the publication, which has been around in one form or another since 1887. “From war zones to SARS wards.” It all “has been erased.” he claims In a  May 8, 2009, open letter to Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. Crampton wrote, in part:

When you merged the IHT and NY Times websites about one month ago I saw real logic and had high hopes. The NY Times has been leading innovation in online journalism for quite some time, while IHT.com was run on a shoestring budget out of Paris, by a feverishly overworked team.

Despite their small budget and small team, however, the IHT website managed to build an online global media powerhouse often outranking the NY Times website on international stories in Google News.

The IHT website earned an ever-increasing pagerank due to all of the blogs and sites linking to stories there. (Based on the number of Internet pages linking back to a site, pagerank starts at 1 and rises to 10. A page with a Google rank of 5 will show up higher than a page with a Google rank of 3 and the IHT.com grew to match nytimes.com at a Google rank of 9. You can check pagerank of any site here.)

“So, what did the NY Times do to merge these sites?” Crampton asks

“They killed the IHT and erased the archives,” he charges, adding:

“1- Every one of the links ever made to IHT stories now points back to the generic NY Times global front page.”

“2- Even when I go to the NY Times global page, I cannot find my articles. In other words, my entire journalistic career at the IHT - from war zones to SARS wards - has been erased.”

Technorati Tags: Thomas Crampton,International Herald Tribune,The New York Times,Arthur Ochs Sultzberger,IHT Archives

Putting Aside Logic on the U.S. Press’ Suicide Watch

New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich have columns today on the state of American newspapers and journalism. See  Dowd’s “Put Aside Logic”  and “The American Press on Suicide Watch” for Rich’s more analytical assessment.

If you only have time for one column, Rich’s is more substantive.

Technorati Tags: Frank Rich,Maureen Dowd,The New York Times,Newspapers

Should Newspapers Get a Federal Bailout?

Arkansas News’ John Brummett asserts in a May 9, 2009, post about a recent senate hearing on newspapers : It’s so bad for newspapers that U.S. Sen. John Kerry assembled senators last week to hold a hearing on the problem.” See “Now politicians are circling newspapers.”

“Newspapers are supposed to be fiercely independent of the politicians, skeptical antagonists of them, not pitiful wards of them and their taxpayer-borrowed prominence,” he opines, adding”

“That’s probably why real working reporters didn’t show up to testify. You don’t go cry on the shoulder of the comfortable ones you’re supposed to afflict.”

What’s a real working reporter these days? Those with a job? Journalists who don’t blog? Does anyone have answers to these questions?

Technorati Tags: John Brummett,Arkansas News,Senate Hearing on Newspapers

A Cynic's Take on Blogging as a Profession

Alex Beam at The Boston Globe offered an opinion on blogging as a profession in May 1, 2009, post headlined "Blogging for Dollars. It's a cynical piece. The kind a journalist with a job writes.

I Still Read My Local Newspapers

A lot of people in the United States have stopped buying and reading print newspapers. I’m not one them. I still subscribe to the Chicago Tribune. And I buy the Chicago Sun-Times five days a week although I read it online, too.

I also buy the weekly Hyde Park Herald to keep up with what is going on it my community, which is dominated by University of Chicago. I occasionally buy the Chicago Defender.

I want my local, daily newspapers to survive. They have a long history of uncovering corruption in Chicago. If it weren’t for Chicago newspapers, U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald wouldn’t have had many high profile cases to prosecute, including Milorad "Rod" R. Blagojevich.

Will the papers survive? I think the Tribune will, if it divest some of its electronic properties and zero in on local news. However, I’m not so sure about the feisty Sun-Times. It has a huge tax bill and the Sun-Times Media Group lost millions defending former executive Conrad Black, who essentially looted the company. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 31, 2009. The Tribune did the same on December 8, 2008.

As Tribune media business writer Phil Rosenthal noted in a February 18, 2009, post: "The company, which owns the Sun-Times and dozens of other area publications and Web sites, is dealing with the Internal Revenue Service on a tax bill of up to $600 million, a legacy of now-imprisoned press baron Conrad Black's reign. A Canadian arbitrator recently also put the company on the hook for $42 million because of a dispute involving an old Black deal.” See “Don Hayner named Chicago Sun-Times editor; Andrew Hermann appointed managing editor.”

Technorati Tags: Chicago Newspapers,Chicago Tribune,Chicago Sun-Times,Hyde Park Herald,Chicago Defender.

Fading to Black Still Chronicling the ‘Downward Spiral of Newspapers’

I see Another Casualty is still going strong over at Fading to Black, which has chronicled the “downward spiral of the newspaper industry in the 21st century” since 2006. If you seriously want to keep up with what’s happening to newspapers, I highly recommend Fading to Black.

Technorati Tags: Another Casualty,Fading to Black,Newspapers

Sun-Times Media Group, Inc. Plans to Close 12 Weeklies

Thanks to a January 9, 2009, post over at Fading to Black, I know that Chicago-based “Sun-Times Media Group Inc. plans to close 12 weekly newspapers in suburban Chicago and has asked its union employees to take a cut in compensation as part of cost-cutting measures brought on by declining advertising revenue.”

I live in Chicago and know some Sun-Times journalists but didn’t know about STMGI’s plans. This is what I call handling your beat. Another Casualty, the proprietor of Fading to Black, really does a good job of tracking “the downward spiral of newspapers in the 21st Century.”

If you want to read more on the STMGI’s plans, see “Sun-Times Media Group to close 12 suburban papers.”

Technorati Tags: Times Media Group Inc.,Another Casualty,Fading to Black,Chicago Sun-Times