Comments on: No one owns the news

By: Natural Weightloss

Natural Weightloss — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:43:18 +0000

Good analysis. Nice approach to a tough subject.

By: rien c

rien c — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:44:24 +0000

well,that i have to agree.news is not really exclusive as anyone who has access to the news can be considered just to be a trader instead of a manufacturer of the news.

By: Heathrow Parking

Heathrow Parking — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:29:32 +0000

You’re dead right about established media brands not wanting to have to fight the competition. But, as you say, no one owns the news, but they do own the mechanisms for reporting it. The blog explosion has changed the nature of news report forever and for the better in my opinion.

By: Robert Niles

Robert Niles — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:54:51 +0000

And I am amazed by your arrogance toward your sources and the communities you cover. Do you honestly believe that you (or Knight Ridder) owns the stories of their lives, and that you alone ought to have the right to tell them and to profit from them?

By: Kirk Cheyfitz

Kirk Cheyfitz — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:19:54 +0000

This reminds of a night in the early 60s at The Fillmore East on New York’s Lower East Side. A local neighborhood anarchist group colorfully called The Motherf**kers interrupted a concert, took over the stage and declared that “Music belongs to the people.” They said they would occupy the stage indefinitely until (as I recall it now) the Fillmore agreed not to charge admission. Legendary music entrepreneur Bill Graham, who owned the Fillmores East and West, stormed onstage after a bit, grabbed the microphone away from the leader of the protesters and shouted: “This music doesn’t belong to the **!!*** people, it belongs to me because I paid for it.” Graham, needless to say, prevailed and we all still pay for tickets to most concerts. In the same way, news belongs to the people who pay for the reporting. God bless them, their numbers are dwindling. As a former Knight Newspapers reporter, I’m kind of surprised to see Niles’ brand of naive anarchism taken seriously.

By: greg drezner

greg drezner — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 12:32:57 +0000

I’m sorry, but I have to dissagree with the last part of your article.

The news industry is not better or more reliable by any mean, the big players who owns most of the “old media” are owned by corporations that are already biased, the young blogger and so called “repeaters” only copy the firsts agenda, and even though they create a feeling of diversity, it’s a false one.

By: Robert Niles

Robert Niles — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:13:33 +0000

FWIW, I am not a USC employee. The bulk of my income comes from publishing independent websites. The rest comes from various freelance gigs, including OJR and the American Statistical Association. So I’m practicing what I preach.

I’d also suggest that a great many local council meetings are being covered by independent online writers. Perhaps as many as, if not more than, the number which are not covered by any newspaper.

By: 64.12.116.136

64.12.116.136 — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:43:30 +0000

Are you salaried? Tenured? Or do you have some other steady income such as an inheritance?
You describe news as “a commodity that belongs to no one.” So: Who will pay to report and produce good journalism? Can you afford to work for free? I never could. And if you think we can just rely on unpaid volunteers to do important journalism, beyond the occasional school board junkies (bless their hearts), you are naive beyond belief. Ellen Soeteber, ex of St. Louis Post-Dispatch, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Chicago Tribune.

By: 207.200.116.69

207.200.116.69 — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:44:06 +0000

Who will cover local school board and city council meetings?

By: Isabelle Boulay

Isabelle Boulay — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:13:50 +0000

Yes, it is true that aggregator sites (aside from those who have paid AP fees) are often in violation of copyright law.

Why, then do they not create robots.txt files that disallow such sites from spidering their content?