A story worth following
The newspaper industry has struggled with the Internet. Its challenges have included readers’ expectation of free content online, the erosion of print classifieds to free listings like Craigslist, and competing with the hyperlocal coverage that social media allows.
One thing that chafes editors and publishers are the news aggregation sites, such as The Daily Beast and Newser, that are popular with online users. Aggregators often summarize the content and then link to the original article. Newspapers claim these sites are stealing their ad revenue and using their content without having to pay the production costs of reporters and editors.
A growing movement among newspaper editors and publishers seeks to protect their business from this latest Internet challenge with changes to federal copyright law. One proposal would bar aggregators from using newspapers’ content for the first 24 hours after stories are posted.
Right now, the future of newspapers appears shaky. Fighting the Internet (and the referral traffic) is probably not the best business strategy to get them back in the game.
This is definitely a story worth following.
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