Comments on: Should Newspapers Hattip?

By: kim->communityradar.com

kim->communityradar.com — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:30:11 +0000

IMHO: As a matter of courtesy and community support, yes, newspapers should hattip local bloggers. As a matter of professional ethics, they are under no obligation unless quoting directly or sole-sourcing the information from the blog. That is one way you can tell if your newspaper is really community-focused … AJC is not and couldn’t care less if it offends local bloggers.

By: Hack

Hack — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:26:57 +0000

I don’t think the posting said all media. Nor did it say all
media since the dawn of time. Blanket statements
are rarely true.
Here’s the point, whatever the form of media, someone
has to pay for it. And, it’s a little much to expect folks to spend
hours every day for years and years entering info, updating
websites, searching out info, etc and doing it all for free.
Eventually, someone’s got to figure out how to make money or it will go away.

By: Decatur Metro

Decatur Metro — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:16:35 +0000

Hack, there may be millions of blogs, but few cover Decatur regularly. In terms of social networking, that’s more of an issue today than it was even last year. But my examples were AJC articles written in response to conversations that were had here and no where else. No question about it. For example, the Crescent Moon staff thanked me for the forum to air their grievances. Can I be absolutely sure without the AJC admitting it? No. But its happened far too often to be pure coincidence.

And just to be clear…there are many instances where I may report things before the AJC, but deserve NO credit, since the story is quite available for anyone to pick up…I just have a quicker turn around.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:53:07 +0000

“Media is designed to make money”

Maybe some, but certainly not all. Some is designed to bring like-minded communities together or as an organizational tool. Media in China is designed to foster allegiance through government sponsored messaging. A century ago, much media was designed to empower workers being exploited in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Media in the middle ages was designed to propagate Christianity. Two hundred years ago to foster independence.

Which is all to say, never get too comfortable with the current model. Time is one evil beyotch.

By: Hack

Hack — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:36:02 +0000

On the credit question, How do you know you published
anything first and should get credit? Since there are millions
of blogs and God knows how many social networking
sites, what make you sure those items weren’t reported
there long before here?
And, a couple of big differences between the blogs and other media–
1. Blogs can be what is called hyper-local — you can discuss and report a restaurant closing, a stop sign down, a traffic light out, a house break in — all things that are important to those close by but have no resonance beyond that very close group. Larger media won’t be interested in those things except as a trend because they are trying to reach a broad market.
2. Blogs cost money. A lot of people spend a lot of time but no
one has figured out how to make blogs profitable. That’s why many come and go. People simply can’t keep them up for ever for free.
Media is designed to make money (hence the attempt at a broad appeal base), although
it’s falling short of that right now, clearly.