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Monetizing the link economy (not)

PaidContent.org has posted an important analysis by media consultant Arnon Mishkin showing that aggregator sites derive far more value by compiling headlines, ledes and links than do the news organizations that actually produce the journalism.

This isn’t exactly counterintuitive, but it does run counter to what a lot of us had hoped was true. Jeff Jarvis, more than anyone, has popularized the idea of the “link economy.” Trouble is, it may not exist. At the very least, it’s likely a lot more complicated than simply a matter of posting links and assuming the linkee will benefit at least as much as the linker.

Here is Mishkin’s key insight:

Actually, it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who’s thought about how people have historically read a newspaper: They’ve scanned the headlines and then turned to the sports, movie listings or recipe pages, depending on their real interest. As the saying goes, “People don’t check the news to read about the fire, they check it to learn that there wasn’t a fire.”

Historically, the value of those casual browsers was captured by the newspaper because the readers would have to buy a copy. Now all the value gets captured by the aggregator that scrapes the copy and creates a front page that a set of readers choose to scan. And because creating content costs much more scraping it, there is little rational economic reason to create content.

Mishkin’s post comes at a time when news organizations from the Associated Press to News Corp. to the Boston Globe are dipping their toes in the water with respect to charging for their content. That’s fraught with difficulties, too, although I’m slightly more bullish about the idea of per-click micropayments than I was even a few months ago.

In the long run, we’re going to have to differentiate between good and bad linking. Blogging is the classic example of good linking, since the blogger adds value through analysis and reinterpretation.

But aggregating in a way that removes nearly all incentives to click through to the original news site defines bad linking. The Huffington Post is one example. Newser is an even more egregious example: when you first access the site, you get photos with headlines; click on one and you get a Newser-supplied summary (with more ads); and, finally, with a second click, you jump to the original. Link economy? More like piracy.

No one really knows what the answer is. Mishkin offers some unsatisfying ideas at the end of his post. My own sense is that newspapers need to try a variety of strategies:

Charging as much as the market will bear for the print edition.
Developing paid online editions for e-readers, cell phones and laptops (i.e., Times Reader and GlobeReader).
Removing the “today’s paper” feature from their free Web sites. (I would continue to offer all or most of the content for free, but not in the form of an exact substitute.)

The search for a business model continues. Mishkin has punched one more hole in a fantasy a lot of people, including me, had believed in for as long as we could.

(Via Howard Owens’ Twitter feed. Owens, you may recall, was a top official at GateHouse Media during that company’s legal battle with the New York Times Co. over the Boston Globe’s aggregation practices.)

A tweak in our comments policy

After some reflection, I’ve decided to restore moderation for Media Nation comments. I hope we can continue to have a freewheeling discussion. But I want to stop abusive, repeat comments before they spin out of control, which has happened on several occasions recently.

My revised comments policy is online here.

Media Nation on hiatus

I’m writing this from the newsroom of “Beat the Press,” and will be running around for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I leave for a five-day backpacking trip. So don’t look for any new posts until late next week.

I’ve turned on comment moderation, but I won’t be here to moderate. In other words, you won’t be able to post a new comment until I get back. So get outside, folks.

Sulzberger speaks

Even as a third prospective buyer has emerged for the Boston Globe — and even as the New York Times Co. has finally acknowledged that the Globe is for sale, something that’s been clear for months — the company’s top two executives have broken their silence to say, well, not so fast.

In a story and interview in today’s Globe, chief executive Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (photo) and president Janet Robinson express the hope that the paper is back on the road to health, adding that they won’t sell unless they can find the right deal — both financially and with regard to “the impact of a potential sale on the community,” as Sulzberger puts it.

They also defend their record as stewards of the Globe since 1993, when the Times Co. purchased the paper for $1.1 billion. (The paper is thought to be worth barely a fraction of that today, though that’s also true of the newspaper business in general.) “I think this company has supported the Globe during a very, very difficult financial period. It has supported its journalism, it has supported its business-side operations,” Robinson says.

Sulzberger gets off the best line. Asked whether company officials regret having bought the Globe, he replies, “How far back should we go? Maybe we regret in 1896 that we bought the New York Times.”

My nickel’s worth: I think the Times Co. was a reasonably good steward until about a year ago, when the company’s own troubles, and fears about the fate of its flagship, the Times, led it to start treating the Globe — and Boston — with contempt.

There have, of course, been deep cuts, including the first layoffs in the Globe’s history earlier this year. But the Globe is hardly alone among large regional newspapers in losing its foreign bureaus and in scaling back most of its national ambitions. It remains just about the only paper in its weight class to have a fully functioning Washington bureau.

Still, the lack of communication on the part of the company — most definitely including Sulzberger and Robinson — during the months-long crisis over union concessions led to a sense that management was not willing to share in the sacrifices being asked of its employees. The $20 million in concessions, including $10 million by the Newspaper Guild, the paper’s largest union, were truly draconian, even if they were necessary.

The question, at this point, is how much credibility the Times Co. has left with the community. The best answer is to put out a good paper every day, and the Globe has risen to that challenge. Still, I have to believe that a new start under a new owner would be the best outcome, provided the owner wants to get into the business for the right reasons.

Like everyone else, I’m intrigued by the notion that Partners HealthCare chairman Jack Connors and Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca might lead the Globe into some sort of non-profit ownership arrangement, which Jay Fitzgerald explained in the Boston Herald earlier this week. But Connors is a walking conflict of interest. No one knows if he could separate his own interests from those of the Globe’s journalistic mission.

In other news, the Boston Phoenix’s Adam Reilly has obtained a memo from the Guild reporting that publisher Steve Ainsley has told union official that the paper is heading in the right direction.

And the Herald’s Christine McConville reports that Ainsley told the Guild that the paper will soon start charging for access to the paper’s Web site, Boston.com, confirming earlier remarks editor Marty Baron made in an appearance on “Greater Boston.”

Spying on the antiwar movement

In my latest for the Guardian, I take a look at a disturbing, underreported revelation: that a public-records request in Washington State revealed an antiwar activist was, in fact, a military spy whose activities may have been a violation of federal law. And I argue that President Obama can no longer ignore calls to investigate the Bush-Cheney White House.

More on Olbermann, Greenwald and Stelter

Glenn Greenwald has posted a statement from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann as well as his own withering response regarding the cease-fire between MSNBC and Fox News. Here’s what Olbermann told Greenwald:

I honor Mr. Greenwald’s insight into the coverage of GE/NewsCorp talks, and have found nothing materially factually inaccurate about it. Fox and NewsCorp have continued a strategy of threat and blackmail by Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, and Bill O’Reilly since at least 2004. But no matter what might have been reported by others besides Mr. Greenwald, and no matter what might have been thought around this industry, there’s no “deal.” I would never consent, and, fortunately, MSNBC and NBC News would never ask me to.

Greenwald then writes:

I certainly believe that Olbermann is telling the truth when he says he was never a party to any deal and that nobody at GE or MSNBC asked him to consent. That’s because GE executives didn’t care in the least if Olbermann consented and didn’t need his consent. They weren’t requesting that Olbermann agree to anything, and nobody — including the NYT’s [Brian] Stelter — ever claimed that Olbermann had agreed to any deal. What actually happened is exactly what I wrote: GE executives issued an order that Olbermann must refrain from criticizing O’Reilly, and Olbermann complied with that edict. That is why he stopped mentioning O’Reilly as of June 1.

Once the NYT exposed this deal between GE and News Corp., MSNBC executives allowed Olbermann to attack O’Reilly last night because neither Olbermann nor MSNBC could afford to have it appear that their top journalist was being muzzled by GE.

Greenwald has some useful links, too, so please read the whole thing. And yes, Olbermann owes Stelter an on-air apology.

Follow the bouncing sports talkers

So why did the Boston Globe and WEEI Radio (AM 850) reach an agreement that will allow Globe sportswriters to appear on the station for the first time in years, as the Boston Phoenix’s Adam Reilly reported yesterday?

According to the Boston Herald’s Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa, Globe sportswriter Tony Massarotti is about to jump ship to WBZ-FM (98.5 FM), the CBS-owned all-sports station that will begin competing with WEEI this fall. Massarotti was a constant on ‘EEI when he was with the Herald.

Bringing the Globe-‘EEI war to a peaceful conclusion would presumably open the way for (a) Massarotti to return to that station or, more likely, (b) beef up ‘EEI as it seeks to compete with a new afternoon show on WBZ-FM that would be co-hosted by Massarotti and Mike Felger, though it’s not entirely clear what is going on.

Weirdly enough, Globe sports-media columnist Chad Finn tweets that Globe writers will be allowed to phone in, but not be in the studio, for WEEI’s highly rated morning and afternoon drive programs, “Dennis & Callahan” and “The Big Show,” although an exception will be made if a Globie has a chance to co-host “D&C.” (Via Boston Sports Media.)

In looking over this item, it appears I may have only added to the confusion. My work here is done. You’re welcome.

A cheap shot from Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann issued his declaration of independence last night. But in doing so, he smeared New York Times reporter Brian Stelter (photo), whose account of a peace settlement between Olbermann’s employer, MSNBC, and his nemesis Bill O’Reilly’s employer, Fox News, had created the need for Olbermann to renew his feud with O’Reilly in the first place.

Stelter reported last Friday that executives at both networks had moved to stop the on-air sniping between the two hosts. “Bill-O the Clown,” Olbermann’s pet nickname for O’Reilly, was frequently featured in his “Worst Persons in the World” segment. O’Reilly, for his part, had started taking aim at the corporate agenda of MSNBC’s owner, General Electric.

Although Stelter, not surprisingly, was forced to rely quite a bit on unnamed sources, he had an on-the-record comment from GE spokesman Gary Sheffer, who confirmed that a deal had been cut: “We all recognize that a certain level of civility needed to be introduced into the public discussion. We’re happy that has happened.”

Stelter also included a quote from Olbermann: “I am party to no deal.”

Seems pretty well nailed-down. Yet Olbermann, on last night’s “Countdown,” designated Stelter as his number-three villain in the “Worst Persons” segment, with O’Reilly coming in at number two. Among other things, Olbermann said:

Problem, Mr. Stelter asks me at least twice last week if there was such a deal, and I told him, on and off the record, there was not. And told him I rather obviously would have to be a party to such a deal. And I told him that not only wasn’t I, but I had not even been asked to be by my bosses. And he printed it anyway.

This is intellectually dishonest, as it implies that Stelter deliberately did not use Olbermann’s quote because it didn’t fit with what he wanted to write. In fact, Stelter did use it, and he placed it in context. It’s very clear from Stelter’s story that the deal had been cut by higher-ups, and that Olbermann might or might not go along.

Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch came in at number one for trying to muzzle O’Reilly. Hmmm … doesn’t that confirm that Stelter got it right?

Glenn Greenwald, who’s been blogging away at Salon ever since the Stelter story came out, criticized his ideological soulmate Olbermann last night, writing on Twitter, “Really surprised by the Olbermann denial – there’s lots and lots of evidence that the NYT’s description about what GE did is 100% accurate.”

Stelter himself took it in good humor after seeing his photo plastered on the “Worst Persons” segment. “Tonight: a reminder to take a new head shot,” he wrote on Twitter.

All in all, not a good moment for Olbermann. He may have reclaimed his independence. But he did so at the expense of sliming a journalist who’d broken an important, unflattering story about collusion by media moguls. At the very least, Olbermann ought to award himself the bronze.

Photo from Stelter’s Twitter feed.