Reuters Editors
Our editors & readers talk
Link economy and journalism
The following is a guest column by Chris Ahearn, President, Media at Thomson Reuters.
Last summer, I published a blog post that laid out my feelings about the link economy and its positive contribution to the evolution of the business of journalism. One year later, Reuters.com continues to encourage linking to the rich content we offer and even pulling interesting excerpts for discussion in a different forum. In exchange for that occasional use of our content, we ask others to respect the hard work our journalists put into their craft and in some cases risk their lives in doing so by offering prominent links and attribution.
We encourage bloggers and individuals to use a teaser and perhaps add their own perspective to enhance the online experience. The RSS feeds on Reuters.com are designed to make this easy to do.
Recently, we engaged in a controlled experiment with Attributor to identify websites that republish complete or near complete versions of Reuters articles and have a commercial model, without a license or agreement. In many cases those websites utilize third party ad networks to monetize their audiences. Some question why we object to websites posting full copies of our stories without a licensing agreement. The answer is simple – we believe it is neither fair nor legal nor ethical.
Our efforts to identify such environments are focused on opening up a conversation with these publishers to create a mutually beneficial relationship. In the last few days, we received many emails about this experiment, varied in tone from humorous to helpful to downright nasty. It seems, however, that some of the facts are being overlooked.
First, we absolutely respect and encourage people to discuss and debate breaking news, particularly when referencing our reporting. We believe it makes societies stronger and are delighted when it happens. Second, we expect websites and users to kindly respect how we wish our content is linked to and excerpted as opposed to copying and pasting (again, that is why we make our RSS feeds available and always welcome linking to the Reuters.com network). Third, if websites are commercial in nature (i.e. take advertising) and want to post our full articles we should have a fair commercial relationship.
We have established commercial license agreements with some of the biggest brands in the world to utilize the work of our journalists, but we also have tailor made agreements for smaller publishers, bloggers and individuals to create a model that works well for all parties.
Content, convergence and creativity
The following speech was given at the Association of Online Publishers conference in London on October 7. Chris Cramer is Reuters Global Editor, Multimedia.
In the spirit of a real debate I’d like to talk today about some trends in the so-called traditional media.
But I can see you sitting out there and thinking: “Here we have a traditional mainstream media guy.” And I’m happy to own up to 40 years or so working for mainstream companies:
The BBC for 26 years – always in news.
CNN for 11 years – always in news and channel management.
And now at Reuters — this time head of multimedia in a business which primarily serves the financial professional.
All three organizations have a lot of history. Reuters has been around since 1851. So a career in pretty traditional news organizations, though in the case of all three they have each managed to reinvent themselves several times down the years to stay ahead of the competition.
very well written piece…found it on facebook on a journalist friends page 
…i totally agree with what has been written and agree with the comment “We think the future of successful journalism is to produce information, intelligent information that matters to people and has context”….i so wish this is followed by media …
Giant shoulders and the chain of knowledge
The new world is not so different from the old world – it just moves faster and in different ways.
As early as the 12th century, the image of dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants came into discourse to mean that all knowledge advances based on the discoveries of the past.
In academia and in journalism that notion has been coupled with the doctrine of attribution – you need to acknowledge the shoulders you’re standing on, to give due credit but also to allow others to search out that perch and see if their view from it is any different.
To me, the current debate about the “Link Economy” in content terms is about:
Are you part of the conversation? Are you adding to the debate or just playing postman and passing others’ views on? Are you adding value and … Are you getting rewarded for adding the value you do?
As head of a journalistic army of 2,700 professionals I obviously have an intense vested interest in ensuring that their work is valuable to readers and valued by them.
Part of that involves ensuring that they are in the centre of the action and that they fill their reports with their expertise and experience. Part of that involves ensuring that they are part of the debate, that their reports inform the debate and that the debate, in turn, informs their future reporting.
Kudos on your continued embrace of the link economy. And for your early embrace, on these shores, of Opinion …
Rubbish as far as I am concerned! Threatening people with Lawyers and attacking their advertising agencies is NOT fair play, nor is it a common sense approach. I agree completely with your article, but Attributor are NOT the people to be in charge of this process.
England.