US newspaper owners are "mad as hell"

US newspaper owners are "mad as hell"

www.breitbart.com

US newspaper owners, their advertising revenue evaporating, their circulation declining and their readership going online to get news for free, are fighting mad.
The enemy? Websites that use their stories without paying for them.

"We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it any more," said the chairman of the Associated Press, a cooperative of over 1,400 US newspapers, borrowing a line from the anchorman character in the 1976 movie "Network."

(visit the link for the full news article)

Uh oh...This could spell trouble.

I wonder just what type of actions are going to be taken here? And will this affect ONLY sites like google, or will this possibly ripple out to sites such as ATS and these forums?

If they do end up getting action taken against sites using their news, then the solution is pretty simple to me:

We create our OWN news stories / investigations.

It looks like ATS is becoming prophetic in moving in this direction

www.breitbart.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

most newspapers put their stories online anyway? So I don't get what they're going to do? shut down their websites? Seems like the only thing they can do

In a way, I see their point of view because they are getting ripped off.

However, they only have themselves to blame. They should have taken action from the start.

Kinda like a trademark issue. Either companies defend their trademarks or lose them. IMO, newspapers chose to do nothing in the beginning because it benefited them.

They just steal there info of other people don't they. The media are just thiefs as well.

I wonder how some media get there info, hhmmmm, i wonder.

Thats what is good about the net, we can all come here getting the news for free, and never look at any stupid adverts.

Griping because of a loss of revenue from advertisements? The only good things I've seen in the "papers" for a very long time are the comics, and the crossword puzzle. Sometimes, the puzzle sucks, as I do not know Hebrew, or the clues are too ambiguous to make sense.

I know where the money is, from the advertisers, as many full page ads are run on a daily basis, at a rate of $10K/. I do not buy from these, at any time.
They could all go belly-up for all I care. The paper is not worth the paper its printed on.

man, that would mean no more free internet ... and thats a problem ... no, they cant control .... thats the problem ... but they would try I guess

Im suprised they didnt start seeing this happening during the Campaigns.
they did it to themselves by publishing biased advertising on the newspapers that normally peoplebefore had no clue of. Now that the media has casted these folks out, more people are aware of who is feeding them BS and who is not. Some people only choose to read certain newspapers as long as it fits their type of mindset.
Many people are sick of reading unfair biased articles, so why should they pay for them? At least online you can always find two sides of the story, and I think that is what troubles them the most.
If they wouldnt have been so leaning towards one side or another, maybe they wouldnt have trouble selling their newspapers. Just my opinion.

Edit- They think they are mad as hell right now, they should pay attention to how MAD AS HELL Americans are at the garbage they spew, half the time when we read their articles, we are usually spitting out the garbage as fast as we can read it.

[edit on 8-4-2009 by Common Good]

It's kind of ridiculous idea for them to want to limit where people get their information.

You'd think that a news agency would want their stories from their sources read by everyone, regardless of where it was posted. This is just another attempt to censor the internet and remove our last bastion of the 1st Amendment.

I can understand they're point of view, but as the above poster stated, they should have done something about it in the beginning when media wasn't a HUGE part of the internet.

~Keeper

Our ability to access and share information is evolving. The newpaper companies better evolve with it. Otherwise they'll end up like the RIAA. Suing to stay alive and being hated by everyone else.

reply to post by andy1033

Yep, as a news industry worker! The problem is, using content without paying for it or crediting it is in fact stealing. What it amounts to is most of these sites will go under because they don;t have the money to pay writers to actually write and most of the workforce lacks the skills and news sources to do it anyway.

Originally posted by theknuckler
most newspapers put their stories online anyway? So I don't get what they're going to do? shut down their websites? Seems like the only thing they can do

That's not the problem, it's people taking their news and not citing them as the source...on ATS, you cite the source in the first post and people can read the entire article...some blogs just repost the entire article and don't link to the whole site. It's usually good etiquette to tease the article and let people read the entire thing on the newspaper website...then they get the proper ad revenue for their services.

What I find interesting is that they don't even TRY to improve their product.

They are losing money because many of their readers have learned that they are not getting unbiased and complete news. The editorial controls are broken, and they should have foreseen that the minute they made profit more important than the discipline of journalism they were risking their business.

Yeah, the words strung together by their reporters is 'their property'. As far as I'm concerned, they can keep it.

Nobody actually owns news, the whole idea just smacks of spooky action at a distance, or a GOD with a beard sitting in a cloud. Natural rights don't exist. They are made up beliefs like all religions, now there can be some value if making stuff up and claiming ownership over stories, but the only value of a story will be whether everyone knows about it, value comes from dissemination, not hoarding news.

They reported and nobody heard about it sounds like the new business model of AP. If you don't report or hoard it they will not know about it, seems counter intuitive and naive and pollyannaish. Exposure means having a story go viral, AP has just said they don't want to be the leader in news breaking, they want to keep it a secret, good luck AP, but we don't need a centralized/socialist news aggregator when we can just make the news from our own cameras and recording devices.

The news now exists as a do it yourself medium, not a hide it and keep it obscure environment, you don't have a right to a profit and you don't have a right to silence people's free speech.

reply to post by Maxmars

I've worked with former AP reporters and they are no more skilled or trained than the average smalltown reporter. The industry as a whole is falling apart because the average worker is poorly educated, often functionally literate below high school level and as often as not, addicted to drugs/and or alcohol. Usually they are failed artists and writers as well, and carry chips on their shoulder that translate into biased reporting. I could't tell you how sickening it is to listen to reporters talk trash about subscribers or their news sources because those people are making a living doing something they failed at. Reporters are often very threatened by people they interview as well because the internet is making it very easy for the public to post comments on websites disclosing how badly they covered a particular story. A paper I once worked for disabled response boards for that very reason!

oh and this just happens to come out to light now eh?

after Obama wants to take over the net

reply to post by bubbabuddha


You're right, nobody owns the News.
But they own the stories.
If you were a regional blogger, and you wrote stories, burned your own gas to get them. Took photos with your own camera (that you also paid for), and posted them. Let's say you end up making 100 bucks per month on Google ads.
Suddenly someone cuts and pastes your stories, to another blog, word for word, picture for picture. Every day they do this. Yes, they credit you. But your traffic dries up, and now you make 1 dollar per month.

Are you ok with this?

You make a valid argument, spacedoubt, but lets all be realistic here, old printed media has utterly failed...failed...to keep up with the times, trends, and technology. As a post-modern society that continues to evolve and rely more and more upon portable lightweight handheld technologies, the demand for 'portable' news has increased, so has the demand for 'realtime' 'up-to-the-moment' news...something for which the old printed media can not remotely offer.

Old printed media brought on themsleves their own demise and to blame their problems on the internet (i.e.: websites, etc.) amounts to being a half-truth, as well as a last ditch gasp before their printing presses come to a halt.

[edit on 8-4-2009 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by Kruel
Our ability to access and share information is evolving. The newpaper companies better evolve with it. Otherwise they'll end up like the RIAA. Suing to stay alive and being hated by everyone else.

Agreed, remember that these people have been living high on the hog since the early 1900's. See Citizen Kane for the lavish livin' large lifestyle based on Hurst's gazillions.

It's parallel to our Federal Gov't in many ways... When times are good, grow the company, when times get tight, complain how bad things are... instead of just cutting the 'dead-weight-pr0n-monger' workers that aren't productive.

That's the dilemma isn't it. Not that the revenue isn't there. The revenue is there to support a great working environment; but Joe Loser made sure 3 of his worthless buds got hired and do nothing. The hard working people support the looser workers... they can't fire either one of them.

Although, from my experience the hard worker gets let go, then he has tell his Joe Looser has to tell his 'buds' "wull, g's looks like you have to do something now and hopefully we won't fold".

News organizations have plenty to stay in business. This is another attack on the freedom of the internet because the financial crisis has finally hit them too. Surprise! Having Union workers making outrageous wages is difficult to support in hard times. Ask the auto makers.