Archive for category: Blogs Internet and New Media

While a number of bloggers think Ian Shapira is a big baby, I think he’s got a point. He shows how Gawker took a story he worked eight hours on and–with 30 to 60 minutes of work–used much of his story for a post.

Sharpira’s got a point for two reasons. First, the Gawker post in question practiced god-awful linking etiquette–taking big chunks of Shapria’s story and only at the end posting a link to the WaPo. And it didn’t add much to the story. Gawker did do what it does best–wrapping the appropriate layer of snark around the abursdities or the world otherwise presented as serious. But it did use a whole lot of Shapira’s interview in the process.

But what Shapira is complaining–rightly–about is that Gawker, a creature of the internet world, did not use good etiquette according to the internet world’s rules. Curiously, though, while he did note that bloggers, too, make news,

And that wild world is killing real reporting — the kind of work practiced not just by newspapers but by nonprofits, some blogs and other news outlets.

… He didn’t acknowledge that the WaPo at times does not itself always credit those it steals stories from (not even after Nick Denton pointed out that even when newspapers lift Gawker’s stories and credit them, they never give hot links). In other words, this bad etiquette thing is a two-way street, and newspapers have their own share of bad etiquette. (Incidentally, Eric Lieberman, WaPo’s General Counsel quoted in the story, admitted to me several years ago that his office followed FDL’s liveblog religiously during the Scooter Libby trial, and not the work of the three WaPo reporters also reporting full time from the court house. We didn’t get paid for prepping WaPo to represent its five reporters testifying at the trial. But that’s because FDL hadn’t figured out how to monetize the best coverage from the trial. But that’s sort of the point, isn’t it–what comes around goes around?) 

But Shapira absolutely does not make the case when he glibly says Gawker is hurting the WaPo, when his evidence actually shows it is possible to make money online, but that for some reason WaPo can’t monetize the links others give it.

Even if I owe Nolan for a significant uptick in traffic, are those extra eyeballs helping The Post’s bottom line?

More readers are better than fewer, of course. Read more →

So the WaPo wanted to silence Dan Froomkin. And instead, their stupid decision has led to Dan Froomkin getting hired by an outlet with greater online circulation than them.

From Glenn Greenwald:

In yet another sign of how online media outlets are strengthening as their older establishment predecessors are struggling to survive, The Huffington Post has hired Dan Froomkin to be its Washington Bureau Chief and regular columnist/blogger.  Froomkin will oversee a staff of four reporters and an Assistant Editor, guide The Huffington Post’s Washington reporting, and write at least two posts per week to be featured on its main page and Politics page.  I learned last night of the hiring and spoke to both Arianna Huffington and Froomkin this morning.

[snip]

Huffington says that it is Froomkin’s views on the media that, for her, is his primary appeal.  The key to vibrant, successful journalism, she said, is "getting away from the notion that truth is found by splitting the difference between the two sides, that there is always truth to both sides."  Huffington argues that establishment journalism is failing due to "the idea that good journalism is about presenting both side without a voice — without any passion."  The outlets that continue to adhere to that "obsolete" model "are paying a price."  Froomkin — who has written extensively about how passion-free, "both-sides-are-right" journalism is the primary affliction of the profession — echoes that view:  "The key challenge is to present an alternative to the ‘splitting the difference’ culture that has infested traditional media."  

I guess Arianna has none of the fears of criticism that the WaPo has–and knows how to bring in the page views.

Congrats to both the HuffPo and to Froomkin.