Sunday, March 1, 2009

News & Observer seeking cheap filler articles for "The Durham News"?

An emailer tells me the News & Observer is planning to run second-hand filler articles they can obtain -- at no cost -- for The Durham News, a community newspaper the N&O publishes once a week in Durham.

The emailer says the recycled articles have been written by freelancers for a Duke University publication called This Month at Duke. The freelancers were paid by This Month at Duke, but have been told their material can be used by the N&O with no compensation. And if they don't like it, they can stop submitting freelance articles to all Duke publications.

As far as the N&O's agenda, it looks like the N&O wants to use The Durham News as an "ad insert paper" to make some extra money. And word is the N&O wants to increase publication to twice a week if they can get enough cheap articles and ads.

(Yes, there's some irony in a blogger like me pointing out somebody else isn't paying a writer for content -- the most I've ever paid a writer is a link and a credit.)

One thing I wonder is whether the good people of Durham will want to read a publication filled with recycled articles.

I'm not up to speed on the ethics of "subsequent use" of articles written by freelancers. Any experts out there? The other obvious question is whether the N&O is setting the table for getting free copy once the N&O unloads more reporters in the next round of layoffs.

If you have more information, leave it in comments.
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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

From the freelancers agreement I was asked to sign:

"Company shall have an irrevocable, paid up, royalty-free, world-wide, transferable license, in perpetuity, to edit and create derivative works of the Work. . . and to authorize republication, reproduction, and syndication of all or part of the Work in print, video, and/or audio. . . in any other media. . . now or hereafter invented."

I choose not to agree.

Anonymous said...

Let me put it this way, at this stage, who cares what MNI does? Their stock price says they’re through, their massive debt says their through, and the size of their paper, or lack of says they’re through.

If you were a laid off MNI employee, would you subscribe to their paper? Especially after the affirmative action, screw over the qualified debacles? Of course not.

Said another way, if they best they have is some lib ass hat in Davis with a green scarf telling them to dare advertise on the internet, they area through.

I think the discussion moves to what “papers” whatever that means these days do, after they go away. They forced me onto the web, and now I don’t need them. ‘Oh, but you’ll miss us” Bull!

How could I possibly miss DNC talking points? Sure maybe they let one article of interest through. But how does that help me? A drop of blue in a sea of green. Am I going to pay, whatever the cost to subscribe to an MNI paper is ($350 per year?) to make me read your BS to glean say a few articles that interest me?

Why should I do that. What should I pay your sorry pseudo elitist lib ass to insult me?

I don’t need you, you need me Pal!

Anonymous said...

N & O and Retreads: This is a repeat from a former thread, but it adds more to this discussion.
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Is the N&O fudging again?
@http://gearino.com/?p=456#comments

Comment: “Speaking of columns, has anyone else noticed that the N&O is repeating them? As in, the one that ran Saturday is the exact same one that ran Wednesday. I found three like that in Wednesday’s paper, and I wasn’t even looking! [Snip] I was appalled when I realized it was recycled content.”

Anonymous said...

The Main Deck Blog links to McClatchy Watch
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The Man Who Would Own McClatchy?
by Jeff A. Taylor

Meet John Rogers. Arms of his Ariel Investments control 26 percent of all outstanding MNI stock.

I have to think that Rogers plans on being at the table when MNI declares bankruptcy and/or is taken private.

http://charlotte.johnlocke.org/blog/?p=3350

Anonymous said...

Duke University huh. Should be some really good second hand Muslim Brotherhood literature to infuriate the population and protect the advertisements.

Anonymous said...

I used to read The N & O daily. I do not recall much if any critical reporting on the housing bubble before it collapsed. There was a daily punch at the Iraq war, and President Bush, but not much about what the Democrats were doing since 2006. What good is the
N & O? This housing/bank crunch and the aftermath will change my whole life. The war in Iraq did not. It would have been a lot better for me if McClatchy had paid less attention to Gov. Palin’s babies, and more on the drooling loons in charge of our country.

Anonymous said...

As a Durham resident and former MNIer I can say the Durham papers are crap (specifically the Herald Sun and the Durham News). The best local coverage comes from blogs like bullcityrising.com. MNI's been delivering the Durham News free of change to area residents for a while now and it's clearly an ad insert paper now. There's not really anything in the Durham News you can't get from the N&O site or some other more comprehensive source. The Herald Sun as been terrible since it was bought several years ago. They had a useful site before the change of hands but now the content is locked down unless you want to register (something MNI figured out is a stupid idea). So hats off to bloggers who get down to the real nitty gritty!

Anonymous said...

"Company shall have an irrevocable, paid up, royalty-free, world-wide, transferable license, in perpetuity, to edit and create derivative works of the Work. . . and to authorize republication, reproduction, and syndication of all or part of the Work in print, video, and/or audio. . . in any other media. . . now or hereafter invented."

Yikes! I don't think Hillary's ultimatum to Bill was that draconian. Kind of takes the free out of freelancer.

Anonymous said...

"I can say the Durham papers are crap"
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You are being too kind, crap isn't quite the right word!

Anonymous said...

I'm a Durham resident and I'm sick of this POS being tossed on my front lawn every Saturday.

When the N&O launched it, this was a pretty decent little community paper. Now it's hardly got any original content and half of what's there is recycled from the daily or lifted from local blogs. I guess that's a result of McClatchy closing the Durham offices.

It's too bad, but I don't want it anymore.

Diane Daniel said...

I'd love to hear from anyone who has written for Duke but will not any longer because of the new deal with N&O (I'm one of them).

Why is everyone here anonymous, anyway? It dilutes the message.

I'm at diane@bydianedaniel.com

Thanks