Associated Press Cannot Compete, Sues
First, please read over my article Niche and Ideological Media Outlets, particularly the part about good journalism.
Unfortunately, journalism in America has degraded into news as entertainment. On top of that, generally speaking, media companies have been resistant to adapt their model for distribution because of their lack of control regarding digital distribution.
Check out this BBC video about American cable news to illustrate my news as entertainment point:
Remember when media outlets started trying to take their product online? Many sights had users log in to view media. Others had users download a proprietary viewer. In general, there was (and still is) an effort to control content distribution.
What happened? New media distribution models started cropping up. Like aggregators that took all the content and put it in one place making media much more accessible. Or torrents, which spread bandwidth usage amongst the user network. Or blogs, which eliminated distributional advantages based on distributional infrastructure and effectively shifted the competitive focus towards content rather than distribution.
With the focus of competition shifting towards quality of content professional journalism is having a difficult time competing.
Why?
Possibly it is due to the trend of sensationalism that news as entertainment promotes. Or maybe because most news outlets regurgitate press releases and are so easily manipulated by the advertising and PR industries. Possibly most journalistic outlets traded their independence for financial stability a long time ago. Or maybe the gap between an amateur and professional journalist is minuscule.
Of course, all of these factors lead to the demise of professional journalism as we know it. Good riddance! I will not be crying at your wake.
The reason, of course, is mullah. Somewhere along the way, the journalism industry systematized a business model that focused competition on distributional infrastructure rather than content creation or integrity.
GOOD journalism is intrinsic to a free and just society, it is something that has become a lost art. Sad but true. That is not to say that there are not many, many wonderful professional journalists. There are.
However, as a general rule, media execs do not give much thought to good journalism. Media companies are out there to make money. In fact, they are legally obligated to maximize shareholder value. That means capturing as much market share as possible. The prevailing wisdom for decades was that the key to market share in media is distribution and promotion.
Technology changed that. Credibility and quality content became increasingly important. Competition based on content has obviously been quite difficult for the old-school journalism industry. In addition, the journalism industries credibility has been questionable for a long time. Sycophantic articles about CEOs, poorly veiled press releases and sensationalistic editorials will do that to you. The out-moded journalism industry has been dying because they just suck at competition on a level playing field. (To suck at competition worse than the film or music industry really says something).
So what do you do in this country if you cannot win in fair competition.
SUE!
The Associated Press has sued Google for creating a more effective mode of content distribution and vowed to control their content more tightly. Thank God the press is choosing to control and limit the flow of information because we all know how fundamental controlling access to information is to good journalism *sarcasm alert*.
Anyways, here is an editorial from Valleywag about the AP’s action. Here is a NY Times article. Here is the AP article. And an Interview with AP Chairman, Dean Singleton, at paidcontent.org.
And a The Australian article in which an exalted editor of the WSJ, Robert Thomson, calls internet aggregators “parasites or tech tapeworms.”
Later he argues, “It’s certainly true that readers have been socialised — wrongly I believe — that much content should be free.”
Just to be fair, the Wall Street Journal, the journalistic outlet most closely associated with Wall Street and the financial industry, is the primary check against abuses of power by the financial industry, right?
We all know how that worked out.
This guy is a double failure as a journalist. Failed to report the truth and fails to distribute the truth.
“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.” -Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Isaac McPherson. August 13, 1813.
“I’m a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.” -Abraham Lincoln
“Freedom and democracy depend upon individuals who refuse to give up the belief that the free flow of information has made freedom and human dignity possible.” -Bill Kovach, Founding Chairman- Committee of Concerned Journalists. September 13, 2006.
Sorry about quote dropping. It is usually not my style. However, sometimes I must defer to those who can articulate with an eloquence that surpasses my own.
In conclusion, the practice of maximizing shareholder profit through legal injunctions that limit the flow of information is in direct opposition to the true spirit of journalism, which is simply, proliferation of truth.
