By KEITH PONDER
The Glasgow Daily Times’ invested millions to be here, do business here, raise our children here and practice our craft here.
And each year we invest between $400,000 and a half-million dollars to produce the content of this newspaper — in print and online.
Imagine, if you will, investing every cent you have (and borrowing the rest) to create a dream opportunity. You put all your strength and creativity into building that dream every day. You work with a team of professionals committed as deeply as you are to build, grow and improve not just your business but your entire community. Everyone on that team works to advance the quality of life and to enhance the lives of others.
Now imagine the product of your hard work — which you funded and brought to life through your best efforts — stolen without compensation, attribution or acknowledgement. It’s something akin to buying the farm and the farm implements, investing in the dairy herd, feeding the herd daily and raising an award-winning herd. Just when you’ve finished the milking, someone drives your milk truck away loaded with the fruits of your labor.
It’s like that in the newspaper business these days. We put up the investment, fund the newsgathering and do the work while others do nothing but claim the work as their own.
Web sites like Google and Yahoo, among others, collect the work product of newspapers and put stories and photos out on the Internet for consumers to view independently of the newspaper’s own Web sites. The worst of these sites, the scrapers, take content that resides on newspapers’ sites and repackage that work. Then they sell it to their customers.
Topix, the scourge of our community, is among the scrapers, though they are not the worst of the bunch. Welcome to the wild, wild West of the World Wide Web.
In today’s newspaper industry, brighter minds than mine are trying to determine how paid content and copyright law must change in order to sustain journalism. These issues impact large newspapers like the Washington Post and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Community newspapers like your Daily Times are a different business. But we feel the effects of these issues too.
It costs money to cover news. If the playing field remains unlevel for very much longer, newspapers already affected by the nation’s “Great Recession” will be put in peril.
Newsgathering in our democracy begins and ends with newspapers – at the world-wide level, the national level and the local level. Newspaper reporters outnumber all other newsgathers and through sheer number and talent outperform the pretty faces of television. Although radio news has been fading nationally for years, thanks to the investment of Henry Royse our community has not seen radio’s demise.
Sites like Topix, Google and Yahoo seek to collect and capitalize on the backs of newspapers. They do so without investing in the market or in newsgathering — they seek only to profit by the work of others. Paid, full-time, on-line journalists could all ride around together in a bus, albeit a very small bus.
Sadly this isn’t new to our industry. Lazy or unprofessional newspaper and television folks have ripped off others’ work for years without compensation or attribution. And in these days of economic hardship, some broadcast stations and newspapers have carved their news staff to a sliver. Any press release, photo or news story that comes through the door gets used. Sometimes, when foolish or weak, they might lift a story or photo, even if it was someone else’s work.
Given every citizen’s stake in a free and vibrant press in our nation and community, each of you has a role to play in not allowing news to become a commodity.
The Glasgow Daily Times spends nearly a half-million dollars each year gathering news for you in your hometown. You have an opportunity to continue to support our vibrant and professional organization through continued subscriptions and advertising, even though there may be cheaper alternatives.
Many years ago, a wise man explained pricing differences to me this way: My competitor knows what his product is worth and why it’s valued so little. I know what my product is worth and why it’s prized so highly. That dynamic is in play in the commoditization of news on the Web, and it’s at play on the streets of Glasgow and Barren County today.
Freedom endures. Truth endures. Value must endure. Yet none of these is free. They are rarely, if ever, provided best by the lowest bidder.
I hope you’ll continue to insist on the finest for your family by continuing to read our best efforts every day. And I hope you’ll continue to support the people and institutions that make it possible for The Glasgow Daily Times to make this commitment to our community.
Keith Ponder is publisher for the Glasgow Daily Times and a vice president for CNHI.
