Old media raises a fuss over web aggregators
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By ANDREW W. GRIFFIN
Oklahoma Watchdog, editor
Posted: September 24, 2010
andrew@oklahomawatchdog.org
OKLAHOMA CITY — It must sting a little bit for the “old media” to see the growing trend of news-and-information seekers going to websites like the Drudge Report, The Huffington Post, WorldNetDaily, Infowars and, dare I say it, Oklahoma Watchdog, when they seek hard-hitting news stories.
Indeed that “sting” has chafed Leonard Downie Jr., the former executive editor and current vice president-at-large of The Washington Post. The Post, a paper that seems to live in the past, has a website that has been trounced by the more popular Huffington Post, a left-leaning news and entertainment website. HuffPo also blew past The New York Times website in terms of traffic earlier this year.
Downie does not like the above-mentioned websites. At a lecture in London, which addressed “old media vs. new media,” Downie sounded a bit annoyed about news aggregators, calling them “parasites living off journalism produced by others.”
As noted at Politico yesterday: “The aggregators fill their websites with news, opinion, features, photographs and video that they continuously collect – some would say steal – from other national and local news sites, along with mostly unpaid postings by bloggers who settle for exposure in lieu of money,” Downie said. “Though they purport to be a new form of journalism, these aggregators are primarily parasites living off journalism produced by others. They attract audiences by aggregating journalism about special interests and opinions reflecting a predictable point of view on the left or right of the political spectrum, along with titillating gossip and sex. Revealing photo of and stories about entertainment and celecrities account for much of the highly touted web traffic to the Huffington Post site, for example.”
As someone with a degree in journalism and over a decade of newsroom experience, I can say that my sites – Oklahoma Watchdog and Red Dirt Report – are aggregators, Red Dirt Report moreso than the original-content-heavy Oklahoma Watchdog.We break a lot of stories here at Oklahoma Watchdog and we have seen our traffic rising every month.
A long time ago, in the age of Lewinsky, Matt Drudge produced original content. He doesn’t write much anymore. Still, the Drudge Report is one of the biggest sites in the world and if you are linked to that site your site will get slammed with traffic. Isn’t that a good thing?
WorldNetDaily is a great aggregator. They also produce hard-hitting original pieces and investigative articles. I don’t think the “old media” gives WorldNetDaily a whole lot of credit.
Infowars and Prison Planet, two sites operated by Austin, Texas filmmaker and radio host Alex Jones, are two huge sites as well. Jones has a team of writers and researchers who produce original content. The sites also aggregate news stories. Some news stories written by this reporter have appeared on those informative sites.
Again, if you’re newspaper site is smart, they will embrace the aggregators, as long as they link back to your site and give full credit for the story to the original source. It’s really pretty plain and simple.
And if you read some of the comments at the end of the Politico story that discusses this controvesy, you will see one written by “HayOrBrains” that notes our local paper, The Oklahoman:
“Many regional newspapers, such as E.K. Gaylord’s Daily Oklahoman, are nothing but mouth pieces for local elites. These papers bury on the back page any news which doesn’t fit their ideological litmus paper tests. Newspapers like that are worse than useless.
Print journalism has failed in the USA.”
Indeed, that is true in many instances. But then I think this is an important discussion to have. I think there is a place for both “old media” and “new media.” Simply let the market work itself out. And of course the “elites,” including President Obama, are open to bailing out struggling newspapers giving “struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses,” according to The Hill.
Copyright 2010 Oklahoma Watchdog
Posted under Blog.
Tags: aggregators, Alex Jones, Business Insider, Drudge Report, Huffington Post, Infowars, journalism, Leonard Downie Jr., media, new media, newspapers, Oklahoman, old media, Prison Planet, red dirt report, Rich Tehrani, The Hill, websites, WorldNetDaily
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1:49 pm on September 24th, 2010
Don’t you feel a little bit aggrivated when you are call an aggragator. The market will settle it out if allowed. The current administration id not keen on the market. The major media outlets missed the market on not aggrigating.
6:27 pm on September 24th, 2010
I don’t have the time or inclination to search the web every day for stories I want to read. I appreciate people like Andrew and the fantastic job he does both writing and collecting stories. Free enterprise and the American way still exist, and we should be proud it still does. If this content is ‘special interest’ I guess it is because I am interested in it!!
You’re doing a great job, Andrew! Keep up the good work.
12:15 pm on September 27th, 2010
I am also a rural resident, and as I see it, the former “newspapers of record”, no longer report news, they report what they feel will move public opinion in the direction they desire, and have totally ceased being journals, or employing journalists, but have become players in the power struggle between our out of control government, and the attempt by responsible citizens to return our Nation to its proper and only legal form: a federated republic, while both the current illegal government, illegal by paying no attention to the exacting limitations put on it by the Constitution, and the power players who are corporations including the former journals, now players, fight against this effort to revert to a “self-governed Nation”, whose authority is entirely derived by the “consent of the governed”, and these former journals and former journalists, are all openly aligned with the communist movement which has never ceased its pursuit of the downfall of capitalism, because these new players want a part of the end power for their own purposes.
The only reason for the complaints is the new media stand in their way, expose their plans, and open the news for the truth, something which has been long awaited for, and drives the “old media” powers crazy because they are not winning, nor do they see a winning hand in the future.
John McClain
GySgt, USMC, ret.
Vanceboro, NC
9:18 am on September 28th, 2010
I don’t see the problem since websites like RDR and the drudge report simply link the reader to the original news outlet’s website. I don’t see why they don’t support these sites for getting their words out to more people.
9:08 pm on September 29th, 2010
The internet has allowed for the reinvention of news and reporting. Blogging, aggregating and on-line news sites allow for thousands of points of view not just the ones they want us to read. We have so many more options than the main stream media. Pretty soon the main stream media will become a dried up creek bed. They refuse to adapt and therefore must attack. Keep up the great work Andrew! You bring us real news that is important to Oklahomans!