AP and CP have no place on Internet

Newsroom circa 1945 when you needed AP and CP

They fight back not with content but lawsuits

Story from TechDirt and NewsFuturist

Both Associated Press and the Canadian Press served the purpose of US and Canadian national reporting services for the small papers spread across the country who could not afford a Washington, Ottawa or Los Angeles office and reporter.

Small local newspapers joined AP and CP and got stories sent first by teletype and then by computer that could be used to fill the pages of local papers.

As niche coverage on the Internet moves forward at a rapid pace, do we really need bland coverage written to satisfy small regional papers. Who is going to wait for the endless chain of write, re-write that goes on in the print news business. By the time an AP or CP story gets to your local paper it can be three days old and not news anymore.

The Internet supports niche sites perfectly. One person can cover the topic they know well and be the expert. The AP and CP stories tend to be generic. For example, the CP story on Stompin Tom Connor’s tour was a recitation of current facts without any real news on our hero Stompin Tom’s music. It wasn’t written by someone who has followed Stompin Tom for years.

Of course newspapers will be forced to research stories on the Internet and actual write something intelligent about it. That will slow them down and they don’t want anything that looks like extra costs.

Both services are in denial and anger on the problem. AP is suing people who re-print their stories. The issue DMCA take down notices on content.

The Internet is much more efficient than that. First, we share stories and link back to the source. If TechDirt has a good story, we can use it completely or as background for our take on the issue. That’s what we are doing here.

If we write a story and someone thinks it is worth repeating, they are free to do so. Our stories get repeated and re-read with great frequency which is cool. It’s a sharing world.

As NewsFuturist wrote “You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and we’ll link to each other. No wires.”