Zombie Journalism

The federal government wants to help save journalism, but journalism doesn’t need saving. Old media needs saving, and they shouldn’t be given a lifeline.

A roundup of recommended links from around the web on the Federal Shield law, newspapers as non-profits, who’s charging for online content, removing content from Google, Twitter, news blogging networks and more.

Do Newspapers Owe Google “Fair Share” Fees For Researching Stories? – Daggle has been on the case with the AP for months now. He examines the irrational fear of the likes of Google – and questions what their resources are worth if they were to start charging us for their services.
How the Old, the Young [...]

The Washington Post took on Gawker for alleged copyright infringement this week in a battle of the blogs. Here’s why the Post writer was wrong – and why the debate itself is just a mere sideshow to the real problems for newspapers online.

David Marburger is pushing the idea that aggregating sites are pushing newspapers out of business with cut-rate advertising. The entire argument is based in several falsities and we should just stop giving this guy face time.

My opposition is not to tough copyright law, it’s directed at big news media trying to legally change the online marketplace to benefit themselves (and not content providers as a whole).

The AP has waded into the online copyright debate with the launch of their new microformat system. Their president has also made alarming claims about the use of their content that leads this writer to believe they don’t know much about Fair Use.

Our industry was built on competition and the free marketplace of ideas. So, let’s pull ‘em up, shall we? Get out there and innovate ourselves a future instead of crying to the principal about how some new kid is stealing our lunch money.

There’s a war brewing between the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the blogoshere – and it’s just completely stupid.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is embarrassing itself in its efforts to limit the First Amendment rights of bloggers and get other sites not to give them web traffic. Aggregators are not the enemy.