Always nice to hear praise from the media industry for our work. Follow The Media reckons Reuters owns the story from Myanmar. It notes that CNN was sourcing some of its coverage to Reuters.com, the only access to Reuters news for the Atlanta-based outfit after it ended its contract with us.
I posted recently that news agencies need to deliver indispensable and unique content to customers if they are to be more than providers of low-value commoditised information. Myanmar is a case in point - Reuters has a reporting presence there while most others do not. Yangon is a very difficult and dangerous place to operate and the Myanmar authorities are refusing visas to journalists. Without access to agencies like Reuters, online readers and other news organisations would be relying on incomplete accounts from bloggers and opposition sources within Myanmar.
Of course the other major agencies like AP and AFP are operating in Yangon. Wholesale customers and readers can decide which of the news agencies are doing the best job delivering vivid, real-time coverage of the crisis. Being ‘most different’ is indeed what counts.
Monetizing that is a challenge, of course. Follow the Media notes the perennial tension between what you deliver to customers for a fee and what you put online for all to see (and for CNN to quote).
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6 comments so far
Is that not a bit strange, if not downright pathetic, that CNN would stoop so low to use material from Reuters.com so soon after dropping Reuters — in order, as they said, to build up their own resources? But on the other hand — if Reuters give away their news for free, is it any wonder that people will be loath to pay for it? Where is that all headed?
- Posted by erikThe only problem I can see from the out sourcing of other news agencies is that because you guys are the only ones there on the site the public that is looking to be informed has to rely on a questionable integrity of the news with no one else to monitor the correctness of the reporting.
Did you stage the monk laying face down in the water or was that the truth. Because you have decieved us before I no long just believe the story, now I have to question the validity of each and every photo that comes.
I do believe that you accomplished one thing though ……… you have managed to wake some individuals that will ultimately make the requisite of free journalism carry the weight of accountability also….. which of course depending upon what side of the lens you stand maybe good or bad.
Cheers
halagas
- Posted by halagasTwo days ago I read TF-financial times and I tought “Thank god for the British” literate with perspective for those who may wish to think; today I happened on a bill Cara blog you carried; see the above article and your extensive blogs and I think-this proves it -= The British, literate, quality, perspective, long range interest -Thank God for the best of them and their institutions-including Reuters.
Frank Maris
- Posted by Frank Maris|Cleveland
Ohio
Dear editor:
It is ironic that Reuters is complaining about CNN, but how Reuters deals with smaller fish is indicative of its own less-than-stellar practice.
Reuters recently ran a news report on Eritrea, based on news published in a small Eritrean website about the assassination attempt on Eritrea’s senior security officer. Instead of mentioning its source, it used the generic “opposition website,” which I suppose indicates that..actually, I don’t know what it indicates other than snobbery, perhaps?
Sal Younis
- Posted by Sal Youniseditor
Gedab News
http://www.awate.com
Thanks for this post and for an opportunity for a grad student in seminary to rant…by the way, I hope this finds you all doing well…
A few moments ago I spoke with my brother in Iraq for the second time in three months… He said Merry Christmas and all the usual stuff, but this deployment has been the hardest of the three he has been on yet, and coming from an Infantryman who led the initial blitz that is saying a hell of a lot. He mentioned that for Christmas Uncle Sam sent him an awesome gift… it was a bill for 2,800.00 for college classes he was supposed to be able to take while he was over in Iraq, but they did not provide him internet, his materials, or the opportunity to drop his classes if these items were not available…
As a matter of fact the Army gave him and many of his troops the go ahead to sign up because they would definitely have these things, but then when they arrived they were sent into remote outposts with sometimes meals not arriving for three to five days… that is still happening too by the way. So with much love and appreciation I send this holiday message, in hope that by now the mythic dream you may have of this country has finally busted, and you can wake up to the types of people we have placed in power and maybe, just maybe your vote will change in the next election… because not voting or voting for idiotic patriotic and pseudo christian heresies are doing more to kill my brother and my family then satisfying some apolitical self righteous indifference from the current paradigm.
Merry Christmas from the hearts of those stuck in mudholes dodging bullets from Al Queda… and the American Government. (Keep the oil comin’ at any cost.)
- Posted by ParrishI’d like to see a Reuters 24 hour TV news station!
But enough of that: Reuters should be flattered anyone should steal a story ad libertum.
CNN is now a monolithic bastion of sameness, newswise: so far up their fundaments that the truth is often beyond its remit, in afresh kind of way.
Reuters should forget about the others and expand its footprint.
Keith M Warwick
- Posted by Keith M WarwickCambridge UK