Who REALLY Owns News?

If you haven't had a chance to check out this pretty cool video site -- do so. Daily I.Q. surfs and posts a ton of easy to embed political videos perfect for quick syndication on blogs...very easy to use and fun to check out videos from a pretty impressive listing.

It also allows me to address a comment posted on AkronNewsNow coverage this week of the stripper suit story -- you know, where the Akron guy is suing the strip club because two years ago a boot flew off a pole dancer's foot and socked him in the nose?

Our story comes from the Associated Press, which grabbed it from the Akron Beacon Journal, who certainly came across it by looking over the list of lawsuit filings with the Summit County Clerk of Courts. In a comment posted on the story, Akdog1245 took me to task:

"Ed Esposito, or whoever is in charge of this site, should be ashamed. You make money by stealing from other news organizations. While it may not be word-for-word, it is thought-for-thought. And yes, you cite the correct sites, but it is still wrong. What you do is taking traffic away from legitimate news sites that actually break the news. So what does that do? It takes traffic away from those sites and, as a result, money. So when the money goes away, the reporters go away. When the reporters go away, so does your thievery source. Then are what are you going to do when there is no one to steal from? You make me sick."

See a doctor, but thanks for at least spelling my name right. I'm guessing that means you had a couple layers of editor to help out.

Steal the story? We picked up the story from the AP, which we pay just as the Beacon Journal and many other news organizations do for the privilege of using their content because we are part of a cooperative. Unfortunately, Akdog1245 apparently missed that lesson about the way wire services work during their stint in the business.

Also missing the point: aggregating such as AkronNewsNow, DrudgeReport, Yahoo, Google, Breitbart, ad nausea doesn't take traffic away; it helps drive more traffic to sites with more extensive reporting. That, Akdog1245, is why newspapers, TV operations, radio stations and bloggers around the world work hard to get their stories recognized and posted by said aggregating. It is one reason why the Akron Beacon Journal now features links to non-ABJ content on their home page: they get it.

The community Akdog1245 refers to -- that of reporters and editors holding tight onto their stories -- is so 1987. Enter the web. Your life hasn't changed, but the entire world around you is spinning cartwheels around you.

The broader definition of community that doesn't just place deciding what's news in a few select editorial offices anymore. The market decides what is news, and today's journalism organizations are learning that the first real consideration to be made isn't who has it first anymore. Finally, democracy in action: the readers, listeners and viewers have more power than ever because there are more choices than ever before on what they read, listen to or watch.

The issue isn't reporters and editors losing control over the news; we never really had control of the news, just control over when we ran the presses, turned on the transmitter or flicked on the camera. The issue for journalism today is how the sales portion of the equation fares in an environment where news consumers have more choices than ever before, and the lifting of these artificial media-platform handcuffs based on the false premise that news managers can somehow stop the spread of communications freedom.

There are more choices than ever for news; it isn't the blogging community, or community-based networks, suffering today. They already run lean, on the Thomas Paine model that one voice and one pen have just as much power as the biggest network or printing press. It is the traditional media, resisting change and a new landscape that may mean lower profit margins, crying the blues the loudest.

The media business cannot continue the way it's been working because that world doesn't exist anymore. The people -- the market -- now have the power to direct what they want, and our challenge is to figure out how to meet that need. The winner who figures it all out (probably not me) will make a bloody fortune, thanks to the vacuum left by companies who forgot the first rule of business success: give the people what they want.

For my colleagues in the media industry: it really is about quality, and finding ways to tell good stories that are meaningful, useful and entertaining. Tell the story first and more outlets than ever before will help you spread the word, especially if they (as AkronNewsNow works hard to do) makes it a point to be honest with the audience and appropriately source the material.

You would rather carp about the past than prepare for the opportunity for the future?

Fine. Leaves more room for the rest of us excited to be part of what's to come.