I’ve talked to several people who work at newspapers and who like to ridicule the idea of the Huffington Post as a news organization. Unfortunately for those poor fools, the Huffington Post likes to laugh all the way to the bank.
In the comments, Curt M came up with one of the best analogies I’ve heard so far about how the news space is changing:
I’m reminded of a story about the early days of the movies. During the early Silent era, movie actors were not credited by name onscreen. People knew them only by description (The Girl with the Dog, the Blond-headed Boy, etc.).
Studio chiefs realized that, once the stars were named and known, they would have enormous popularity and clout … and that the studio bosses wouldn’t be able to control them and would have to pay them more.
You know what happened with the movies. The same thing is now happening with journalism. Smart companies will get it and embrace it and thrive; non-smart ones … won’t.
That just about hits the nail on the head.
The Huffington Post gets it.
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It would be rather nice if Huffington’s cheery walk to the bank included a stop by the post office to send a paycheck to the writers who are making her money. Or to the newspapers whose content she regularly, and blatantly, steals.
Sorry, it’s not a business model I admire.
I may be wrong, but my understanding is that the Huffington Post doesn’t lift content, they either link to it or generate it themselves.
Can you show me a few examples of where the Huff Post blatantly steals content?
Sure, here’s one from the top of their page right now:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/28/palin-claimed-dinosaurs-a_n_130012.html
Note that they have a tiny link at the top — “The LA Times Reports” — followed by 222 words copied straight from the LA Times. There’s nothing to indicate that this is the top of a longer story, and by copying so much — including the nut graf of the story — they leave very little reason for many readers to actually go to the LA Times.
There are more than 2,000 comments on the HuffPo story. How many of them do you think actually went to the LA Times, read the piece, then came back to discuss it?
I accept the possibility that this was done through some agreement with the LA Times that I’m not aware of, but I doubt it. I know for a fact that the HuffPo has done this to articles from papers where it definitely does NOT have a content sharing agreement. And I have seen them copy far, far more than 222 words.
Here’s another. This is an article that is made by stitching together other reporters’ work: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/29/free-palin-mccain-camp-re_n_130146.html
In the print world, this is called plagiarism, plain and simple. (Even, sometimes, in the non-print world: http://www.slate.com/id/2196810/pagenum/all/ ) Here’s it’s a business model.
Roger Ebert, of all people, recently castigated Huffington for this practice: “Arriana, I love ya, but this practice is immoral, and HuffPost practices it shamelessly. ”
Of course, HuffPo will use the old “we’re sending traffic” excuse to defend this theft. But many other sites — TPM comes to mind — are very careful to use just a headline, or a headline plus paragraph, when pointing to another’s story. HuffPo copies huge chunks from real content producers, adding nothing of its own but its own advertising — is that’s not theft, I don’t know what it is.
If not 222 words, then what is theft? 500? 1,000? All but one word from the original piece, so long as you provide a link?
The US Copyright Office’s fair use guidelines at http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html offer some limited guidance, noting that the amount of material used and the manner in which it is used both should be considered in deciding if something is fair use.
To my eyes, many of the Huffington Post’s “news” stories are not.
By the way, I’d be interested in your thoughts on my other point: the Huffington Post doesn’t pay its writers. Since you cited it as an example of an institution that gets it — yet your piece on entrepreneurial journalism called, among other things, for publications to start “Paying (writers) a higher salary” — I’m wondering what parts of their model you see as instructive to other journalists.
James Warren, by the way, is not being paid for his work at HuffPo. I sincerely hope the name recognition he is presumably seeking there turns into an income somewhere else — soon.
Working Reporter – thanks for pointing me to those, I do think that LA Times article is a particularly juicy example of how not to aggregate news.
To be perfectly honest, the last time I cruised the Huffington Post seriously was a few months ago, and I had planned to write a post about how many of their images on the home page linked directly off of their domain to other news sources (to say what a smart idea it was).
It looks like in the meantime they might have changed that model to be more of a roach motel, which of course I disagree with. My fault for not taking the time to check again.
I’ve written before about what needs to be done about digital plagiarism, but I think it’s more of a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” type of problem. The RIAA didn’t solve anything by suing people who downloaded files—they (largely) solved things by developing ways for people to legally download mp3s.
I don’t know what that solution is offhand, but I think that trying to shut down scrapers is an un-winnable battle and a poor way to spend ever-more-precious resources.
As to your other question—I meant only that the Huff Post “gets it” in terms of how to attract readers and develop brand engagement: by attracting big name talent.
If they don’t have to pay their writers, that’s an excellent business model for HuffPo, although I’d recommend that reporters think long and hard before accepting that gig.
It’s a two way street: newspapers need to start treating journalists more like valuable resources, and journalists need to start acting like they’re valuable.
Jason:
I think those are good ideas. Sadly, the current cost cutting at newspapers is driving away more experienced — and more expensive — reporters. This seems self-destructive to me; I agree with your suggestions and with ideas like Philip Meyer’s: http://ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4605
Thanks for the discussion.
Working Reporter – that’s a great piece, thanks for sharing.
And you’re very welcome for the discussion. I love it when I get to talk with people in the comments, it’s probably one of the biggest reasons I blog in the first place.