The Tennessean’s political blog In Session makes a case against the Nashville City Paper for what they are calling “news laundering.”
Hmmm … where does that link go? To Post Politics, a news “aggregation” site also owned by Nashville City Paper’s parent company, SouthComm. Well, no mention of who wrote this little gem. Let’s click once again…What do you know?! Bill Theobald from The Tennessean! Amazing…
To which Post Politics blogger Adam Kleinheider responds:
Yes, we actually credit and/or link to our source material over here unlike some folks we know. Your point is?
In Session demonstrates with screen shots how the Nashville City Paper linked to a Post Politics post that then linked a Tennessean article with all the reported details of Sen. Corker’s strategic vision in Afghanistan.
How long the breadcrumb trail has to be before you are ripping off other people’s content is a very good question. Kleinheider did the right thing, but the editor of the Nashville City Paper online probably didn’t.
RESOLUTION: Unless your news organization’s blogger has added anything significant to a news report that is not yours, including opinion, it’s always best your legacy media (or online version of legacy media) link directly to the original source, not to a blog that simply curated the source without adding anything of value.
NIT
News
Pretty sloppy.
As audiences become more savvy to reading news exclusively on the internet, the lack of quality linking is just going to hurt overall credibility and turn people away from reading your site.
Good point. At the core of that suggested resolution really is serving your reader. If you are making your reader click to one of your blogs where the blog didn’t add anything of value only to have to click another link to the real source, your reader remembers that. They remember that you led them through a page-views strategy that failed them.
Curators or aggregators like Kleinheider don’t always have to add value other than simply sharing a link and excerpt to what they found interesting. Kleinheider did everything right. But the Nashville City Paper has to remember to link to items that give the reader value, even if it’s the competition. That may sound counter intuitive, but DrudgeReport is the top of its game for a reason, and Matt Drudge doesn’t write anything but headlines.
Right on. I think you have it exactly right: Kleinheider is doing what he’s always done, which is aggregation. His attribution was fine and his use of quotes was fair use. The problem came with the editorial staff trumping up is excerpting/aggregation as a news story (complete with picture).
[...] Grantham has tackles both the hyperlink and the though questions: How long the breadcrumb trail has to be before you are ripping off other people
[...] Christian explains it: RESOLUTION: Unless your news organization’s blogger has added anything significant to a news report that is not yours, including opinion, it’s always best your legacy media (or online version of legacy media) link directly to the original source, not to a blog that simply curated the source without adding anything of value. [...]