What does an outdated journalism service do to protect itself? Crawl further into its shell. If there ever was an age of information (and disinformation), this is it. News and events no longer come from a handful of media outlets and quick hit journalism services like the AP and Reuters. Instead it now comes from the citizens themselves. It’s done through blogs and social media and it’s killing old school media services that fail to keep up.
CNN has proven its ability to keep up through the heavy promotion of its i Report service. In the past few week they’ve showcased i Report stories as the featured story on the CNN home page. Similarly, the New York Times has embraced many new features to their site, including links in their stories (that’s actually a big deal) and the ability to leave comments.
Then there’s the AP — the Metallica of outsourced journalism. Instead of adjusting and changing their model to compete in the new news market, they’ve dug their heals into the ground and made both their partners and readers into enemies. Jeff Jarvis captured the dire situation best with his article Whither the AP.
I want it to morph to a new model and a new future. But I am afraid that in its fights, we are seeing its inability to adapt (not all its own fault; I’ll bet blame goes to its board and member/owners). And in its current combatants, we see the preview of a day when the AP has no friends left: not its members, not us readers/writers. If it does die, it could be that these parties would shrug and not mourn. And that would be the tragedy.
Certainly, there’s outright theft of content. I see it everyday on the Internet with my job. I stumble upon sites all of the time that have stolen our marketing copy, layout and many times our complete blog entries. However, it doesn’t really concern me. Ultimately, most of the sites that steal content don’t really profit much from it. And for the few that do — the ones that actually make an impact — that’s what lawyers are for. In regards to the AP and their desire to charge for using 5 words from an article, it’s ridiculous and they can suck it. And by suck it, I mean go down in flames by a fire they started in their own house.
My two-year-old son has had to sleep in a regular bed — instead of his normal crib — while we’ve been on vacation. So far, he doesn’t quite have it down yet. In this picture, he looks like he passed out in his room from a drunken chocolate milk stupor.
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When I first saw the cover of Madonna’s new album, Hard Candy, my first response involved throw up in my mouth. Later, without the need of actual research, I discovered that the original album name was should have been Hard Cougar. Here’s the album image for your puking pleasure.
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Okay, now that Pennsylvania’s primary is over, it’s time for Obama to crush Clinton.
I have a lot of friends who are freelancers and technically I’m self-employed at Sitening. I ran across an article on Salon about What every freelancer should know as it relates to finances, taxes, health, etc… If your interested, you should read the entire article, but here’s the quick gist of it:
- Get a tax advisor.
- Set up a different bank account for your business earnings.
- Pay your taxes quarterly.
- Set aside a regular percentage of your income — enough for state and federal — into a tax fund that you do not touch.
- Do not wear your pajamas after noon.
- Build in rewards.
- Exercise.
- Take a shower.
- Get health insurance.
- Open an Individual Retirement Account, better known as an IRA.
- Do not own a coffeemaker.
- Consider sharing office space with other self-employed people.
- Socialize with other people in your field.