Compare the pathetic AJC to any newspaper in the country and here is what you’ll see. Top line is SF-Gate, bottom the hopeless Atlanta-Journal-Contitution.
I’ve been writing about the death of newspapers in my various online (and PC Magazine) outlets and attribute much of the slow demise to the boneheads that actually operate newspapers today. I mean it’s embarrassing. Here’s an example. One of my editors asked to reprint a mere letter to the editor that appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constituion for use on this lowly blog. Here’s the response:
Thank you for your email requesting reprint
permission. The website permission fee is $200.00
for the plain text of the article for up to one
year’s use. Payment is required up-front and
is non-refundable. If you would like to do this,
please call me with credit card
information or mail a check to my attention.
This was a letter to the editor mind you, which is also technically owned by the writer. Do they split this money with the letter writer? Or what? And, who are they kidding? Are these folks that out-of-touch with reality? Or are they so arrogant that they can never understand the new media era? Or both?
I commonly give repront rights for free with credit lines and a link being all that is required. And I should mention that for such trivial reprints such as a letter to the editor $50 would be high by any standards. No wonder their overall numbers are in the tank. And I bet it’s costing them serious money to be online in the first place. Cripes.
interesting to NOTE:
The COST of publishing a news paper is in the adverts…It fully pays for MOST papers.(this includes Mags also)
the COST we pay USED to be paid to the delivery person…
so WHY is the price going up??
the demise of the newspaper is in proprtion to how many KIDS watch TV, rather then READ… That and FACTS, SPEED of news.
Only thing about NEWSPAPERS is whats happening in your AREA, if they could do that ALONE, it MIGHT be worth reading.
Also, the AJC charges if you want to view past articles online (they call their archive “the Stacks”). $6 is good for 10 articles or 24 hours, whichever comes first. $13 is good for 30 days or 35 articles, and $10 will get you an ongoing subscription good for 75 articles per month.
Needless to say, I don’t use the stacks.
Charging so much for website permission almost makes one think the AJC doesn’t want the increased exposure.
No wonder we refer to the AJC as the Atlanta-Urinal-Constipation.
I would put the letter on this site anyway. As you said, they don’t own it — the letter writer does. See if you can get in touch with the person who wrote it and get their permission — to hell with the paper.
No matter what you do, it sounds like “fair use” to me anyway.
Mike T
If you consider the newspaper as a local publication, it will always be better than online portals. Try tucking a laptop under your arm and reading it on MARTA.
We must remember that while the world is sounding the death knelll for newspapers… it is the newsapaper’s staff that does all the work…. No newspapers no news. The AP would be worthless without the contribution of its members newspepapers.
And television nerws…. well … if I have to explain that one…
Yeah.. Laptop on MARTA… How bout I just put a “mug me” sign around my neck….
I haven’t been around long enough to compare. But my Dad says that the downfall of newspapers was when the chains started buying up all the papers across the country. The national news or international news no longer had any diversity of opinion. It was all sent down from the papers headquarters. And local coverage was usually reduced in many areas and replaced by sports or stuff that titallated. A good example is the Knight-Ridder papers……you could wake up in a city and not know where you were, because the headlines and fron sections are almost clones.
Plus, people don’t read or in many cases don’t have time to read a paper anymore. If it weren’t for the retail ads and classifieds they almost all would go under.
Mike, I thought about running the letter anyway, but to be honest it was more lame than this post in the grand scheme of things. Now it’s a little dated. I was just surprised that the AJC seems to be living in the 1950’s regarding all this. Whoever is telling them what to do online is blowing it. Their numbers suck big time and apparently they do not realize that they may never recover. It’s pathetic.
Takes a small mint to advertise there.Seems to grow they would have cheaper advertising.
Here’s a comment from someone that lives in Atlanta: The AJC sucks in general. They’re a Cox-owned newspaper, and maybe that’s why they charge so much. I was looking for an article one time, and discovered this “stack charge”, and was really disappointed.
You’d think the newspapers would take a cue from CNN and MSNBC and back off the left-wing rhetoric, but they seemed destined for the garbage heap of history.
If anyone cares, there’s one newspaper that defies the trend and that is the New Orleans Times Picayune.
Maybe it’s because since Katrina, we’ve needed more centralized sources of information; maybe it’s because they pull fewer of their punches and are more hard hitting since NOLA got kicked in the gut. The information is more in-depth and the presentation is clearer. Besides, they aren’t afraid to point fingers at those who deserve scorn and laud praise where it is due.
Maybe other papers should take a look at this one. They surely have a lot to learn.
I agree about the chains..corporatism and news is a bad mix.