Publish 2 and disrupting the AP

Publish 2 announced this week that it is starting a nationwide (worldwide?) news sharing service with the idea of disrupting the Associated Press.

Scott Karp, Publish 2's CEO, made the presentation at Tech Crunch's Disrupt conference this week. (Be sure to watch the video' don't just read the story.)

I think Publish 2 will have an effect, but not the fully disruptive one it aims for. Having worked for the AP in a state where there were sharing agreements before they became fashionable and now having some association with a news exchange, allow me some observations (the map that Karp displays in the video is missing some states with news sharing arrangements):

• Publish 2's biggest contribution to the party is standardizing the news feed format so that it is compatible with AP's.
• Newspapers will sign up as contributors if the copy can simply be funneled into the system from an RSS feed, which I suspect it can.
• Newspapers may sign up as users because it is no or low cost to them. However, I don't expect this to replace the AP but to end up being used as more of a supplemental service by many papers.

Some of my reasoning:

• On the state level: In states where the news sharing operations already are in place but are cut and paste, a system that automates the process would make sense. However, in other states, such as Ohio, the papers already have built out fairly robust sharing software.
• In some states, the sharing systems are closed ecosystems by design. In South Carolina, for instance, the largest papers have a closed system because some of them don't want smaller nearby competitors getting the goods. Publish 2 allows exclusions, but then we're back to a better tech platform that just enhances, but does not necessarily create, something disruptive.
• This system, though Karp doesn't say so and may not believe so, is aimed at larger papers that  are the ones a) struggling the most and b) are just a fraction of AP membership. Reality check: Smaller papers don't particularly want another input to sort through.
• The argument could be made that those smaller papers might shift from the AP to this because of the cost factor. I don't see it for a couple of reasons:
• News people want information validated. Rant as you will, but the AP provides that validation. If they want to shift to lower cost, CNN's new wire service might perform the same function.
• There might be a handful of blogs and other "alternative" sources they would come to trust, and I'd hope that a service like this might lead to more, but in most cases I'm willing to be it will be in specialty areas, such as food or the tech example Karp used. It's not likely to be in the areas of general news, and especially not politics (too much chance of getting burned). Maybe sports, but there are some serious egos to overcome in that bullpen.
• The smaller papers are simply more likely to drop the "wires" entirely. It's a manpower and market issue.

The AP already is getting less than half of its revenue from newspapers, so I'm not sure how disruptive this would be in that sense anyhow.  And it's started experimenting with a la carte pricing.

There's really a deeper philosophical thread here. At one point, Karp refers to the AP delivering a lot of "commodity" stories. Granted, and point well taken. The less-philosophical reason is simple - AP serves a wide variety of members. It's stories have always tended to be plain-vanilla. Argue good or bad, it is what it is.

The deeper philosophical argument goes to the nature of news and its function. Many of those commodity stories cover things that no one else, not even alternative sources, is covering. It's the old utility model - you charge the urban, affluent customers more so you can afford to serve the rural areas. Or you provide a package with some loss leaders made up by a higher blended rate (the cable TV model Karp refers to).

I like to think that is the underlying philosophy, but I also understand things are changing. Let's see where thing go.

Meanwhile, AP, which has talked about integrating all sorts of content into  its News Exchange platform might simply duplicate Publish 2's model inside its own framework.

Playing around with the photos in W.Va. - dumb, dumb, dumb

Well, at least we know Photoshop has made it to West Virginia.

Seems a Morgantown newspaper didn't like that a bunch of legislators were standing behind the governor when he signed a bill to toughen penalties on hit-and-run drivers. It just wanted the members of a victim's family, who also were there.

So, poof, no more legislators.

The paper's explanation: It's election year and it doesn't want to run pictures of folks seeking re-election. And besides, it called the picture a "photo illustration."

Like that changes anything. It's a news photo, folks. Not an "illustration." As they say in golf, you play it as it lies, you don't improve your "lie."

So while we know Photoshop has made it across the Ohio River, photo ethics apparently are still a bit behind. But, hey, in these days of struggling newspaper revenues, maybe The Dominion Post (warning, the site is an Olive e-edition that requires a subscription beyond the headlines) has hit on a new revenue stream: photo retouching.

(More on this from Ralph Hanson's blog, including the strange tale of how AP reporter Larry Messina broke this on his blog, then took the story down. No credit to Messina or the AP that he won't comment. I'm betting the D-P complained as an AP member. There are no sacred cows in AP - just members (lol).)

Getting a journalism job - the view from London

Ed Caesar ruminates in a column from the London Sunday Times this past week about why so many folks want to enter journalism school even as he exposes the underbellied reality of getting a job in the newspaper business these days.

It's a good read, filled, of course, with delightful Britishisms (if you can ignore that the paper's Web publishing system seems to have randomly cut off the first letters of several sentences).

The shortcoming is that he frames it entirely in the concept of the newspaper - and the British nationals. Journalism is quite a bit more these days, which might explain why there is the demand.

Still, one truism remains - it's no place to get rich.

New definitions of quality in a digital age

I missed these in the past couple of weeks on Paid Content.

Ben Elowitz knocks down traditional measures of quality in the first post and proposes some new ones in the second.

From his second post, commenting on traditional measures:
Here’s the problem: They simply aren’t enough to win audiences, drive financial success, or, for that matter, ensure viability. The demise of institutions like Newsweek proves that—and shows that publishers that don’t move beyond these anachronistic measures of success will perish.

I agree with Elowitz to the point of saying quality measures have been expanded in an age when there is digital abundance, and anyone who does not think long and hard about what he is saying is not understanding what is happening.

But I don't think it's quite the zero-sum game his posts might suggest. I don't think the "old" measures are "anachronistic," just too narrow. I think there still is value in "correctness" and "craftsmanship." "Objectivity" is a straw man - we never have been objective. Fairness, however, still has its place, if nothing else but for civility.

"Credential," I agree, does not count much among users in an age of transactional credibility. But Elowitz does not deal with the reality that it still carries quite a bit of sway on the other end of the pole -- news gathering. That makes for an interesting set of questions that need more research.

Online Mugging

Over the years, I've been truly po'd at some bosses, enough so to get into shouting matches with them (not my proudest moments). And there are times I probably should be thankful the Internet and blogging and comments didn't exist, or I might have been one of those contributing to this online mugging of a departing ABC producer.

(Who knows, as a former boss I might have been the object of one of these, too.)

You always expect a few complaints, but were I a top exec at ABC, I'd be thinking long and hard about the string of vitriol here. I'm of the "if there's smoke, there's fire" school, and this seems like a conflagration that has been smoldering for years.

Something to follow on Facebook

Worth noting on Facebook is the page by Death of Paris, an indie band from Columbia of which one of my former students is a member.

The idea of band pages isn't new, of course - MySpace is ground zero for them. But what intrigues me about this effort is that it is built around the band's trip to Los Angeles and its efforts to record and assemble an album.

It's more than that, though - it's a really intimate look at all the other stuff they're doing (some of it in sort of wide-eyed amazement) such as a visit to a Jack in the Box restaurant or the tiring climb up the hill to Universal Studios for some good old tourist sightseeing, all with plenty of links to YouTube.

Other bands may have done this -- I don't claim to be an expert (please, point out others in the comments), but I think it is a really interesting use of social media to try to build a community around the band's effort.

You know those "rockumentaries" of the '70s and '80s, following bands around on tour. This reminds me of that, only in a new free-form documentary style that unfolds chapter by chapter. I find it kind of appealing.

Does Christ have a PR agent?

OK, this is one of those stories to read on a Monday morning just -- well, just because. From the Berkshire Eagle, outpointed by Bonnie - thanks.

Best line:
Christ could not be reached for comment Friday.