Author: Dan Kennedy

The Times Co. answers GateHouse

Having just skimmed through the New York Times Co.’s 100-page response (PDF) to GateHouse Media’s lawsuit over the Times Co.’s linking practices, I’m more convinced than ever that this case could harm Internet journalism if it goes to trial.

Because the case has First Amendment implications, it’s on the fast track — a trial could begin in U.S. District Court in Boston as early as next Monday.

As a brief reminder, GateHouse is suing for copyright infringement and related allegations because Boston.com’s Your Town sites — currently in Newton, Needham and Waltham, but scheduled to be rolled out in as many as 120 communities — link to GateHouse’s Wicked Local sites without permission.

The Times Co. claims, correctly, that linking is the lifeblood of the Web, and that GateHouse papers link to outside content as well, including stories in the New York Times and the Boston Globe. GateHouse claims, also correctly, that Your Town goes beyond normal linking practices by grabbing headlines and ledes from numerous GateHouse stories in a given community.

The Times Co.’s answer, by lawyers R. David Hosp and Mark S. Puzella of the Boston firm Goodwin Procter, argues that there’s nothing unusual about the Your Town linking practices; that GateHouse does it, too; and that GateHouse deliberately toned down its own linking practices in anticipation of its lawsuit. The lawyers write:

[G]iven that GateHouse engages in the same and substantially similar conduct that it claims is unlawful and entitles it to monetary damages, to the extent GateHouse prevails, it should be liable for identical claims based on its own past and present third-party news aggregation and verbatim headline and lede linking practices.

The brief is bolstered by printouts of GateHouse sites that aggregate news from other sources and by numerous internal e-mails. In one, written just before Your Town’s debut in Newton, Greg Reibman, editor-in-chief of GateHouse’s Metro Boston unit, wrote: “My suggestion would be for us to do all we can to make sure the Globe fails here before they roll this out to other communities.”

In a press release, GateHouse Media’s president and chief operating officer, Kirk Davis, disparages the Times Co.’s attempt to compare the two companies’ linking practices:

By trying to equate its conduct with legitimate and widespread linking practices which permeate the Internet, it is The New York Times’ counterclaims that threaten those established practices as well as fair competition in online journalism. The simple reality is that The New York Times chose to disregard these principles with its serial copying and display of GateHouse’s original content on the boston.com ‘YourTown’ websites, which it has turned around and offered to readers in the same towns served by GateHouse’s WickedLocal websites. We will defend these meritless counterclaims vigorously and consistent with controlling legal principles of fair use.

As I’ve argued before, I think Boston.com’s practice of linking to virtually every GateHouse story on its Your Town pages is overly aggressive. Even though Your Town may drive traffic to individual GateHouse stories, it seems pretty clear that the project could starve the Wicked Local home pages of the oxygen they need to survive. (By way of comparison, take a look at Your Town Newton and Wicked Local Newton.)

On the other hand, as I’ve also argued before, GateHouse overreacted by literally making a federal case out of this. Those of us who are immersed in Web journalism, especially blogging, have a sense of what’s acceptable in terms of linking practices and what isn’t. Do we really want a judge or a jury setting out in writing that — for instance — you may be breaking the law if more than 31.5 percent of the links on your site go to a single source?

It would be in everyone’s best interest, especially the Internet community’s, if this case is settled before it goes to trial.

Social-networking the inauguration

I’ll probably be watching plain old CNN by the time the actual inauguration rolls around. Right now, though, I’m looking at a couple of interesting experiments:

  • CNN.com has set up a live stream integrated with Facebook. If you’ve got a Facebook account, you can watch video as comments pop up on the right-hand side of the screen.
  • Check out what people are saying on Twitter by clicking here and searching on #inaug09 — especially fun because most of the posts are from folks who are there.

Calling all academics

The last time I conducted book-length research was more than a half-dozen years ago, when I was working on this. My notes for every book and article I read and every person I interviewed got a separate AppleWorks file. (That’s right; I was a Microsoft Word holdout for many years.)

When I was done, I could easily see what I’d read and whom I’d interviewed. But sorting and searching left a lot to be desired. In some ways, it was actually a step backward from my master’s-thesis method, which involved stacks of five-by-seven index cards that could be endlessly sorted.

As I gear up for another book-length project, what tools should I use? Something like a digital version of those index cards, which I could tag, search and sort any way I like, would probably work. (Remember HyperCard?)

All suggestions welcome.

Reading the Times with Times Reader

Last week’s David Carr column on paid content brought a response from Slate’s Jack Shafer, who reminded us of his love for a product I had frankly forgotten about: Times Reader, a subscriber-only program that lets you download that day’s New York Times and read it offline, at your leisure.

Times Reader is based on some of the earliest ideas for online newspapers — ideas that were washed away by the rise of the Web. Indeed, Shafer even links to a video about the Knight Ridder digital tablet, an early-’90s idea that never came to pass. As envisioned back then, you’d plug your device into a slot on your cable-television box in order to receive newspapers, magazines and possibly books. You’d pay for it all, of course.

Click on image or here for a Flickr slideshow
of page captures from Times Reader

Anyway, Shafer’s latest prompted me to see if a Macintosh version of Times Reader had ever become available. Indeed it had, and I promptly downloaded it for a test drive. Because we subscribe to the Sunday print edition, there’s no extra charge for us. Otherwise, it’s $14.95 a month.

Is it worth it? Reluctantly, I have to say no, except for a certain small subset of readers. If you want to read the Times on your laptop every day in a place without an Internet connection — say, on a commuter train, or a bus — then Times Reader is for you. Of course, even trains and buses are increasingly likely to offer WiFi, so maybe I should describe the target audience as a subset of a subset.

First, the good. The typeface used by Times Reader is strikingly attractive, presented in a three-column format, almost as if you were reading a print newspaper. Because the entire paper resides on your hard drive, navigating Times Reader is very fast. Using the cursor keys, I find that I can skim through the paper much more effectively than I can with the Web edition.

In addition, we all know that the experience of reading a newspaper in print is very different from reading it on the Web. In print, there are boundaries; we’re limited to what the editors have chosen for us. The glory of the Web is that there no limits, but that’s its downfall, too. The temptation is to follow link after link. Before you know it, your intention to read the paper is gone.

Times Reader reimposes those sense of boundaries, especially when you turn off your Internet connection. (There are links, but you can’t follow them unless you’re online.) It’s just you and the paper, so you might as well read it. Unless you are an extremely disciplined person, you’re likely to read more of the Times using Times Reader than you would with the Web edition. If, like me, you don’t have to pay extra for Times Reader, then you ought to give it a try and see if you like it.

So what’s not to like? Quite a lot.

First, despite the attractive typeface and presentation in Times Reader, I actually find the Web version easier to read. The type is plainer, the leading (spacing) wider. I’d also rather have one column to negotiate rather than three. Readability tends to be a subjective judgment, but there you have it.

Second, photography in Times Reader is an afterthought. The Times, like many newspapers, has used its Web site as a way of giving us more, better photojournalism than ever before. Yet Times Reader doesn’t even give us as much as the print edition. There is a “News in Pictures” feature, but it’s completely random and unsatisfying.

Third, the Web edition includes a view of the print-version front page. I have no particular psychic need to have the print edition, but I do like to look at page one to see how different stories were played. You don’t get that with Times Reader, and the organizational scheme is such that, beyond the lead story, you don’t get an entirely clear idea of what’s important and what isn’t.

Fourth, Times Reader isn’t just a closed environment; it’s claustrophobic, even compared to the print edition: there are no ads in Times Reader, and I miss them. Advertising gives you a sense of liveliness, of stuff going on. I hardly ever click on Web ads, but I’m glad they’re there. Of course, Times Reader also cuts you off from all the great online-only content the Times Web site offers — videos, blogs, slideshows and the like.

Finally, I’m not sure all content is present in Times Reader. Last Thursday, for instance, I couldn’t find David Pogue’s technology column (and, as best as I can tell, there is no search function). I was also interested in trying out the crossword puzzle, but the necessary Mac software for my version of OS X (10.5) seems to have been botched.

Times Reader is a valiant attempt to come up with an online newspaper that people will pay for, and it’s something you may consider trying if you want to read the Times in a spot with no reliable Internet connection. But, to my eyes, it’s not nearly as good as either the Times in print or on the Web. Too bad.

Israel’s challenge in Gaza

Steven Erlanger of the New York Times weighs in with a must-read piece on the ethical and logistical challenges Israel faces in avoiding civilian casualties in Gaza.

The depth and nuance are striking, but what I like best about Erlanger’s analysis is his unblinking assertion that the cause of this war is Hamas’ years-long terrorist bombing strikes against Israel — something that may be obvious, but that tends to be obscured by protests against Israel’s “disproportionate” response.

Watch the accompanying video, too.

The little man at the podium

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Admit it: You didn’t watch President Bush’s farewell address. Well, I did. In my latest for the Guardian, I take a look at his short, half-hearted effort at vindication and conclude that the real message is we no longer need fear the little man at the podium.