Here’s the deal, Mr Murdoch: If you stop lifting my content, I’ll pay for yours
Earlier this week, I gave Fairfax something a kicking for nicking videos from their original source.
They quickly responded with a return to what sounds to me like a much fairer policy.
So it’s amusing to see that News Ltd seems to be straying into the same kind of territory – only this one is a bit more personal.
On Wednesday night, I pulled a late one. I spent seven or eight hours reading through all of the recent rulings by the Advertising Standards Board. I’ve still not caught up on my sleep properly.
Great piece Tim, and thanks for the linkage 😉
Think if anything you’ve been a bit soft on this one. Clearly a rehash without attribution or linkage and as you succinctly point out – not a good sign for the future of paid news!
I’ve seen it a few times, but this one (and because of the level of research you’d clearly gone into) stood out like a cat in a dog kennel.
It really is decidedly old-school thinking to “forget” to mention sources. The funny thing about the web is that everyone benefits from quoting the source.
Ha, you probably need to catch up on some sleep now
Oh boo hoo – newspapers have followed up each other’s stories forever – the first thing a cos does in the morning is check the competition for yarns to catch up on
“all tip and no iceberg” Can I source that from you – or should I ask Paul?
Best stay in the wading pool young Tim, there’s a bit of splashing in the ocean
Good piece, Tim, but as Joe mentions above, this sort of thing has been going on since newspapers began – if someone’s got a good story and you don’t, you need to get it too (and you won’t see the Herald Sun giving acknowledgment to The Age for breaking it first, or vice versa).
If anything, it’s a compliment to this site that the mainstream media is paying attention to what you’re doing (though I’m sure it’s still frustrating when you’ve done the legwork and someone else piggybacks on it, but that’s journalism).
Hartigan’s a member of the old guard who has no understanding of new media, the same with most upper management in our big media companies – he probably barely looks at his own sites, much less yours.
Your main point about pay walls is spot on. “Exclusive” news content loses its exclusivity as soon as it is published. Most big stories broken by newspapers (such as this week’s World Cup bid scandal) I hear about first on ABC radio when I wake up. By the time I am looking at a newspaper, I know all the facts already.
One more factor in all this – will the pay walls stop journalists following up other outlets stories? Given Fairfax’s penny-pinching culture, I highly doubt they’re going to spring for subscriptions to News Ltd’s sites for all their journalists once the pay walls come in.
It may have been going on since the dawn of time but I think Tim’s point is that it is difficult for Publishers to adopt a position that scalds anyone for taking any of their content when they are practicing the same way. It doesn’t happen all the time, but there is definite cross-over of news on each publisher: Fairfax newspaper report, News Limited newspapers report, NEWS.com.au says etc etc. Nicely spotted.
It’s a publicly released report. You just took the time/initiative to read it first. It’s commendable, but that’s life – you don’t have exclusive acess to the content/source. Everyone does – it’s a public document.
If the Herald Sun finds a document on the internet, and writes the first “exclusive” story on it, The Age/ABC/commercials don’t credit the Hun in their follows, they credit the report – the report is “the source”, not the Hun.
It’s the same as if you reported a press release first. Mumbrella wouldn’t be credited as the source, other media organisations just get the original press release and write it up or chase their own angles from there.
However, if you had procured a leaked document or some such, then by all means, other media orgs should be crediting you – but only because if they can’t source the document themselves. If that is the case, then you ARE the source and should be credited as such.
The ASB complaints were featured in a big piece on p3 of the SMH today – they gave full credit to Mumbrella.