QOTD: Today’s…Wait For It…News

I dunno, I think he nailed it.


Saints Owner Begs Newhouse to Keep Times-Picayune Daily

Passionate and interesting argument from Tom Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints:

It is hard for me to imagine no Times-Picayune on Monday, February 4, 2013, the day after our city hosts Super Bowl XLVII. Cities like ours deserve, and have, at least one daily paper. A city that will celebrate 300 years as a city deserves a daily newspaper.

I understand the need to embrace the evolving technology that comes with the digital media. However, I see on a daily basis the need to have a vibrant newspaper in the hands of those that have made it a daily habit to pick up the paper and read it from cover-to-cover. I proudly count myself in that number and have for much of my life. Our city needs and deserves the Times-Picayune to remain a daily newspaper, which will work hand-in-hand with your digital storytelling ventures.

I don’t know if I agree that the lack of tangible paper to hold on will change the coverage, but you can’t hand the Super Bowl MVP a Tablet to hold up with the hometown headline (actually, yes you can).


Logic Baffling Comment Policies

Spotted at Romenesko:


Oh, So That’s the History of Copyright

Answering questions like, “Why does George Lucas’s copyright last so long?”

via Mental Floss


News and Tech Survey: Pie Charts That Add up to Over 100 Percent

The question, from News and Tech’s 2012 Tech Survey, is “what trend or technology do you believe the newspaper industry can’t afford to ignore if it wants to remain viable?”

A bit confusing to read there, so here’s a better way to think about it: almost two-thirds of the respondents (based out of News & Tech’s industry-wide readers) said mobile can’t be ignored, while almost half went with the paywall answer. Intriguingly, I think the answer that was the lowest – becoming data-first or digital-first – is the most fascinating.


Mobile Means More News Consumption, Not Replacement

Was listening to this bit from the News Hour, on Pew’s recent research into media consumption habits:


…and I was thinking about some of the points Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, was making when it comes to mobile consumption of news. Yes, newspaper circulation is down, but that doesn’t mean news consumption is down. It’s up, there is more news than ever and mobile is an important driver to all of those old school media organizations.

The Insidious Cost of Ringtone Piracy

Oh, this is just glorious Rob Reid.

[via.]


Commenter Beware of Defamation…

This actually makes sense: Google was absolved of responsibility for comments posted in a Blogger blog that were allegedly defamatory of a British politician. In an interesting development, as the Guardian piece notes the political candidate “brought no proceedings against either the original blogger or individual commenters.”

I get it. Sue the guy with deep pockets. But accusing the host for comments they didn’t prevent is a horrifically slippery slope.

There’s no precedent being set here, but it’s another piece of the puzzle as we look to define and separate the roles of host of content, publishers of content, creators of content and commenters of content…when each of those actions create additional assets of their own.

 


QOTD: Assuming the Costs of Piracy

Wonkbook is on the trail of some of the claims about the cost of piracy to the economy, but buried within the post is one of my favorite arguments. Brad Pulmer writes:

Part of the difficulty here is that it’s not always easy to tally up the true costs of piracy. For instance, if a person illegally downloads a movie or song that he never would’ve downloaded otherwise, then it’s not clear what the losses are (the benefits, by contrast, are much clearer).

That point of availability beyond the market, to me, is always fascinating. Just something I’m thinking about during this debate.


QOTD: Definitions

Courtesy of Wolfgang Blau’s Twitter feed:

“I am much less concerned about who we call a journalist than about what we call journalism” – @dangillmor


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