AP Correct In Calling BS On BlogosphereAP Correct In Calling BS On Blogosphere

No one else has voiced support to the AP for drawing a line in the virtual sand and attempting to preserve the tattered remnants of the profession of journalism, so it falls to me. Here goes: Just like the New York Mets with their firing of manager Willie Randolph, the AP botched big time the implementation of its copyright cease-and-desist claim against a tiny Web site, but the basic point was correct. Here's why.It's all about the moochers, the untrained hordes (aka, bloggers) who think that linking out to that story you sweated over to report and write is worth as much as four years at Columbia J-School. It ain't.

By now, you probably know the basic facts. (Mitch Wagner explains it nicely, here.) The AP sent a takedown notice to a site which had quoted scantily from one of its stories. That launched a firestorm, led by A-list blogger Michael Arrington, who haughtily posted that he was holding his blog's breath until it turned blue-screen-of-death blue. Not only did he write that he was banning the AP from his site, TechCrunch, he also repeated the misconception rife among bloggers by noting of the controversy, "frankly, the fact that they [the AP] are being linked to should be considered a favor."

Ah, that precious link! Here's where most bloggers are delusional. (Dept. of Caveats Dept.: I'm not talking about all bloggers, I'm being reductionist for effect. Also, while I'm beating up heavily on Arrington here, TechCrunch has done lots of worthy and original work about startup companies.) The basic argument runs something like this: Yeah, we admit we don't do any original reporting, and many of us just pull opinions out of our posteriors. However, you boring old legacy journalists should be grateful that us funky young bloggers -- who will be gone the minute we can score some Web 2.0 Bubble cash -- have deigned to send a some traffic your way. (By the way, nowhere near as much traffic as they think. Unless you're Digg or Slashdot, two sites which link without guile or theft, we're typically talking dozens, or at best hundreds, of hits.)

OK, so why am I so pissed? No, it's not the lack of journalistic training or that fact that many of the bloggers who are complaining have never written a news story. It's the money, stupid, or the lack thereof. Let me explain.

First, there's the fact that it costs enormous sums to serve as a primary source for breaking news. This is called paying reporters' salaries. Yeah, I know: conglomerate, aggregate, focus on local news. Blah, blah, blah. Someone please tell me -- when the carcass of the traditional news business has finally collapsed, who's going to cover what the president did today?

The blogosphere would have you believe that, if your site is just kicky enough, this isn't a problem, because you'll get traffic and therefore ads. Only they're not factoring in the fact that the ads no longer pay so much and a lot of the traffic, uh, sucks.

Regarding the ads, I've explained this in detail in my earlier post, Digital Pennies From Analog Dollars Are Web Content Conundrum. The problem here is that $20,000 print ads have morphed into online banners worth several hundred dollars. The economic equation has shifted so drastically that it's not like you can take the Ivy League salaries of the old days and replace them with barista pay. Nope, we're firmly into layoff territory. Taking up the slack from all those canned reporters who worked to feed their families are pajama-clad posters who do this as a hobby, or with funding secured from a divorce settlement.

More interesting, and forward-looking, is the traffic angle. I don't expect bloggers to have much insight into this, because they're largely old-line creatures of the post-Bubble Web. (Zing!) In this world, the belief is that all traffic is good. Those of us who've noted the disparity in the quality of reader comments between, say, a story on cloud-computing infrastructure and one on Lindsay Lohan's leaked Web pictures, know differently.

The people who spend money on Internet advertising also have noticed this, and they're working on ways to target the readers that matter to them. In a year to 18 months, raw traffic as significant metric of site traction should be dead. (Don't worry, guys -- party invites for A-list bloggers will still be important.)

One final thought: Many posters, Mr. Arrington included, have insinuated that the AP, in demanding payment for very short excerpts, is trying to rewrite existing law. This charge is disingenuous at best. What the AP is doing is testing the limits of the current law. Those more familiar with copyright law than I (Arrington is a lawyer; I am not) will know that fair use is not explicitly defined in terms of the number of words someone may quote. Rather, fair use is set by legal precedent. As famous copyright cases involving letters by Jerry Ford and J.D. Salinger proved, there are no absolute rules.

In fairness, though, the AP is almost certainly on unsustainable ground in trying to stanch quotes of only a few words. (On the other hand, if you don't believe really short quotes can get the lawyers sicced on you, trying republishing a verse from a Beatles song and see if you don't get a letter.) So, while the AP, like my beloved Mets, may have muffed the handling of this one, I gotta give them credit for a good Don Quixote try. And look at it this way: With the all enemies the AP has made on this one, they can't be completely wrong, can they?

For the most amusing rendering of the opposite viewpoint on this issue, check out Hey, Associated Press: You owe me at least $132,125!, by Michelle Malkin, who's not usually known for the light touch she displays here.

What's your take? Please leave a comment below, or shoot me an e-mail directly at [email protected].

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