In a letter to its members last week, the Associated Press made the announcement that bloggers should be cited as a news source. The AP has revised its policy on crediting other organizations and even bloggers when due.
This is a significant move from the AP, known for its strong stance against competitors, especially online. Given that such a large news organization has made a point of recognizing bloggers as a viable news source, it has much wider implications on how bloggers affect the news agenda and overall news industry.
The AP Institutes New Policy to Credit Bloggers, via
Softpedia
The news association has been wary of crediting sources that are not part of AP not to mention pure online sources like blogs.
This has now changed and the new policy is to give credit to anyone breaking a story or providing facts used by AP reporters.
"In the age of the Web, the sourcing and reliability of information has become ever more crucial. So it is more important than ever that we be consistent and transparent in our handling of information that originated elsewhere than our own reporting," the AP said in a letter to its members.
The AP refers to two types of situations. If AP reporters use facts and information from other sources they must always credit those sources, regardless if they are competitors or even blogs.
The AP has been especially critical of bloggers and has fought against those that would use any portion of a story or just the subject in a post, even if they linked back to the source.
"We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it’s U.S. based; and whether or not it's an AP member or subscriber," the letter explained.
The new policy also covers breaking news. The AP says that reporters should always credit the source of a story even if the AP report ads significantly more info.
This last part is interesting because, at the same time, the AP is fighting to institute the hot news doctrine, which aims to give a sort of monopoly on a story to the organization that first reported on it.
The new policy goes a long way towards getting the AP in line with other news organizations, even traditional ones, but it remains to be seen if this is truly a sign of change.
COMMENTARY: AP Begins Crediting Bloggers as News Sources, by Lauren Fisher, TNW (www. thenextweb.com)
Here's an excerpt from the above article.
Interestingly, [AP] makes a point of saying that they must credit information where it occured from a website, so you would hope that this would cover Twitter as well, given that so many stories break on here. The details aren’t clear on quite what this attribution would look like (is it the website or the individual that’s credited?) but this is definitely a positive and exciting move.
Importantly this has implications for the individual blogger opposed to blogs overall. Even though the AP states that attribution to a blogger or other source doesn’t have to occur at the start of a story, it still means valuable visibility for bloggers in front of a wide audience. If you’re a blogger that breaks news then this has huge implications on how high up the news chain you could get. Instead of just having to go out and find stories yourself, if you get in front of the right people, it could mean that bloggers are approached with the right information and maybe even given exclusives ahead of traditional publications. This may be looking a bit too far into the future, but the possibility for this can certainly be seen now.
Is AP slow off the mark?
I don’t want to risk downplaying the significance of the move from AP, but you could very well argue that they’re actually a bit late to the game with their most recent change.
In
‘The Source Cycle‘, an analysis of articles from the New York Times & Washington Post over 6 years finds that blogs are increasingly referenced as a credible news source. And this was carried out in 2008.
It’s when you look at it in this context that you realise just how much work is still to be done when it comes to recognizing bloggers and importantly growing the area overall. AP is a huge news agency yet only now are they making this change. As exciting as this announcement is, we must question who is looking after the blogger’s rights and how can they make a living from their blog?
It’s one thing to attribute them as a news source, but you would hope that this change from AP may well affect the blogosphere overall and we may start to see more bloggers employed by news organizations who recognise the collective power of bloggers in regional areas. This is where blogger’s ability to influence and set the news agenda really starts coming in to play and can change the traditional news industry.
A fascinating
study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism into news online, finds that 99% of links to news stories in blogs, are to traditional news outlets or mainstream publishers.
I find this figure incredibly surprising. Typically when I link to stories, I tend to link to other blogs not so much as a conscious decision, but because they’re what prompt me into writing a blog post myself. There’s simply more content out there on blogs, and I find it a bit juicier than that offered by mainstream publishers. Given that so many blogs rely on traditional outlets to reference in the post, you can’t help but wonder if there is a third way on offer here. Not so much journalist vs. blogger, but what skills do the two of them have together that can offer a unique news product?
We’ve already seen some developments in this area, such as publishers employing bloggers on the ground, but I think this goes one further than that. The announcement has served to recognise the work that bloggers put into breaking and reporting stories. But interestingly they make a point of saying that they must credit information where it occured from a website, so you would hope that this would cover Twitter as well, given that so many stories break on here. The details aren’t clear on quite what this attribution would look like (is it the website or the individual that’s credited?) but this is definitely a positive and exciting move. Importantly this has implications for the individual blogger opposed to blogs overall. Even though the AP states that attribution to a blogger or other source doesn’t have to occur at the start of a story, it still means valuable visibility for bloggers in front of a wide audience. If you’re a blogger that breaks news then this has huge implications on how high up the news chain you could get. Instead of just having to go out and find stories yourself, if you get in front of the right people, it could mean that bloggers are approached with the right information and maybe even given exclusives ahead of traditional publications. This may be looking a bit too far into the future, but the possibility for this can certainly be seen now.
Are AP slow off the mark?
I don’t want to risk downplaying the significance of the move from AP, but you could very well argue that they’re actually a bit late to the game with their most recent change. In ‘The Source Cycle‘, an analysis of articles from the New York Times & Washington Post over 6 years finds that blogs are increasingly referenced as a credible news source. And this was carried out in 2008. It’s when you look at it in this context that you realise just how much work is still to be done when it comes to recognising bloggers and importantly growing the area overall. AP is a huge news agency yet only now are they making this change. As exciting as this announcement is, we must question who is looking after the blogger’s rights and how can they make a living from their blog? It’s one thing to attribute them as a news source, but you would hope that this change from AP may well affect the blogosphere overall and we may start to see more bloggers employed by news organisations who recognise the collective power of bloggers in regional areas. This is where blogger’s ability to influence and set the news agenda really starts coming in to play and can change the traditional news industry.A fascinating study by Pew into news online, finds that 99% of links to news stories in blogs, are to traditional news outlets or mainstream publishers. I find this figure incredibly surprising. Typically when I link to stories, I tend to link to other blogs not so much as a conscious decision, but because they’re what prompt me into writing a blog post myself. There’s simply more content out there on blogs, and I find it a bit juicier than that offered by mainstream publishers. Given that so many blogs rely on traditional outlets to reference in the post, you can’t help but wonder if there is a third way on offer here. Not so much journalist v blogger, but what skills do the two of them have together that can offer a unique news product?