Editor&Publisher: 50 US papers rescind AP cancellation

Fifty US newspapers that had previously given notice of cancellation (two years warning is required) to the Associated Press have rescinded those notices, reports Editor&Publisher.

50 Papers Rescind Associated Press Cancellation Notices.

Similar posts:

• AP offers digital analysis to members as papers bypass agency content
• Editor&Publisher: US Tribune Group to drop AP subscription for nine newspapers
• AllMediaScotland: MPs release ‘Crisis in the Scottish Press’ report
• Editor&Publisher: Michael Wolff – “Newspapers not only will go away but they should go away”
• Editor&Publisher: What alternative to AP for US newspapers?

Chicago Tribune: US Tribune papers to shun AP content for a week

The Chicago Tribune and Tribune Co.’s other US newspaper titles will run a week-long experiment starting from next Monday by using as little Associated Press (AP) content as possible.

The trial is part of review into costs and follows the Tribune’s warning to the agency last year that it might drop the service.

Full story at this link…

Last year a group of newspapers in Ohio forged an alliance (the Ohio News Organisation or OHNO) to share their top stories in a move against AP copy.

Similar posts:

• Ohio’s leading newspapers to share stories across web
• The AP ‘beginning to fracture’ as members form collectives, reduce reliance
• Editor&Publisher: Tribune had warned Google to stop crawling newspaper sites before United Airlines story
• Editor&Publisher: US Tribune Group to drop AP subscription for nine newspapers
• AFP: LA Times and Chicago Tribune in foreign desks merger

Martin Moore: AOL and TownNews adopt hNews microformat for news

A new ‘microformat’ for metadata in news stories is fast nearing a stage of ‘widespread adoption’. The ‘hNews’ system will attach information about the author of the story, where it was published and where it was written, to every news story.

Media Standards Trust director Martin Moore updates on the latest hNews developments today: AOL and TownNews should be coming on board soon, to join the Associated Press which signed up in July.

“Thousands of news articles marked up with with hNews, a microformat for news content funded by the Knight Foundation, will soon start populating the internet. Last week, hNews became an official draft microformat. Having been proposed as a new data format and then discussed within the microformats community, it is now in draft 0.1 at Microformats.org. This means it has reached a stage where the microformat community believes it is stable enough for widespread adoption.”

Full post at this link…

More to follow from Journalism.co.uk next week.

Similar posts:

• Knight News Challenge names community news project as winner
• Spot.us celebrates first community funded news article
• The official launch of Spot.us: video explains all
• LA Times: Spot.Us expands to Los Angeles
• New Voices journalism grant winners for 2009 announced

AP: US military backs down on photography ban on soldier casualties

US military leaders in Afghanistan have reportedly backed down on plans to ban news organisations from photographing or videoing US soldiers killed or injured in battle.

According to the Associated Press (AP), some confusion remains about what images can be captured by reporters embedded with the army in war zones.

The proposed ban came partly in response to the AP’s recent decision to publish images of a fatally wounded marine.

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• AP (via Captured Photos): Why the AP published images of a fatally wounded marine
• Journalism Daily: Timetric on data journalism, new book on financial journalism and Northcliffe’s hybrid model
• TheAustralian: ‘Major gap’ in whistleblower legislation
• Manchester Evening News mojo captures Ronaldo crash
• Stars and Stripes: US to screen journalists for ‘positive coverage’ before embedding

Nieman Journalism Lab: AP’s Tom Curley on the ‘oversupply’ of news – full text and audio

Ah, Nieman Journalism Lab, how we love your full transcripts and audio.

Publishers must take back control of their content from search engines, aggregators and bloggers, which have become the ‘preferred customer destinations for breaking news’, the Associated Press (AP) president and chief executive Tom Curley told an industry summit in Beijing last week.

But as Nieman Journalism Lab reported on Friday, Curley was ‘far more revealing’ when he spoke without a prepared text on October 6 at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong.

NJL is kindly sharing the audio and transcript.

Full post at this link…

Similar posts:

• Nieman Journalism Lab: Clay Shirky – Let a thousand flowers bloom to replace newspapers; don’t build a paywall around a public good
• Nieman Journalism Lab: Recommendations from the API for the Chicago meeting
• Evolving Newsroom: Arthur Sulzberger Jr on newsroom investment
• AP: China ends Olympic relaxation of reporting restrictions
• Local newspapers must ‘own’ local news, says Curley

AP: Search engines must pay up, say Murdoch and AP’s Curley

Publishers must take back control of their content from search engines, aggregators and bloggers, which have become the ‘preferred customer destinations for breaking news’, the Associated Press’ (AP) Tom Curley has said at an industry summit in Beijing.

“We will no longer tolerate the disconnect between people who devote themselves – at great human and economic cost – to gathering news of public interest and those who profit from it without supporting it,” Curley said (though slightly strangely citing Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook as key examples of threats).

Speaking separately at the event, News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch said ‘the aggregators and plagiarists’ would soon have to pay the price for using publishers’ content for free.

If publishers and news organisations don’t regain control they will pay ‘the ultimate price’ and it will be ‘the kleptomaniacs who triumph’, he added.

Earlier this week the Associated Press (AP) said it is considering whether it could sell news items to online clients for a short, exclusive period.

The agency is also developing a new system for tracking its content online and monitoring copyright infringements.

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• Aggregators, plagiarists and kleptomaniacs: Rupert Murdoch’s Beijing speech in full
• Nieman Journalism Lab: AP’s Tom Curley on the ‘oversupply’ of news – full text and audio
• Editor&Publisher: AP mulling early sale of stories to news sites
• Aggregator NewsNow says publishers seeking court injunction to stop linking
• Going back to the backlink licensing case: NLA’s full statement

AP (via Captured Photos): Why the AP published images of a fatally wounded marine

The Associated Press (AP) has explained its decision last week to publish an image of Lance Corporal Joshua M. Bernard, a US marine fatally wounded in combat in Afghanistan.

According to reports, the soldier’s family did not want the photo in question to be published.

The AP has also confirmed it received a letter from US defence secretary Robert Gates asking the agency not to publish it.

Now the agency has explained its decision – including the following from the AP’s director of photography, Santiago Lyon:

“AP journalists document world events every day. Afghanistan is no exception. We feel it is our journalistic duty to show the reality of the war there, however unpleasant and brutal that sometimes is.”

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• AP: US military backs down on photography ban on soldier casualties
• AFP: Journalists wounded in Aghan bomb attack
• Social and mainstream media join forces to cover Afghanistan election
• BJP: Photographers sue Met Police for treatment at Greek embassy protests
• FIPP 09: How magazines learned to love the web – Grazia and GQ discuss

AFP: Journalists wounded in Aghan bomb attack

The AFP is reporting that two Associated Press journalists have been seriously wounded in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan.

The agency has identified the pair as photographer Emilio Morenatti, 40, and Andi Jatmiko, 44.

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• AP (via Captured Photos): Why the AP published images of a fatally wounded marine
• AP: US military backs down on photography ban on soldier casualties
• Guardian removes suicide bomb video after 550 complaints
• Social and mainstream media join forces to cover Afghanistan election
• Journalism Daily: Freelance photographers’ rights, AFP reporters injured and Express rapped by ASA

Editors’ Weblog: Auto-translation problems at La Tribune

A cost-saving measure of automatic translation is produces ’some confusing results’ for La Tribune, the Editors’ Weblog reports (via the AP).

“In a bid to increase its international audience, the French business newspaper La Tribune has begun using software to translate its website into English, German, Spanish and Italian. Unfortunately for the paper, the cost-saving measure of automatic translation produces some confusing results.

“A current headline on the English-language site reads: “The United States: confidence of the consumers in Bern, reduced trade deficit,” which appears to make a serious error in geography. What do American consumers have to do with the Swiss capital?”

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• Gawker alleges computer cut-backs for WSJ.com staff
• Newsandtech.com: San Diego Union-Tribune finally abandons manual pagination
• The Star Tribune… going dark: employees launch online petition
• Sunday Tribune: Paper defends editor’s right to keep confidentiality
• City A.M.: Capital Ideas group makes bid for Observer

New York Times: AP to distribute non-profit journalism

The Associated Press has signed a deal to distribute the work of of four non-profit journalism groups.

Work by the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and ProPublica will be free for publication by the agency’s 1,500 newspaper members.

Full story at this link…

Similar posts:

• Non-profit investigative journalism centres around the world: a list
• MediaShift: “Collaboration the key to future of investigative journalism”
• ProPublica editor-in-chief on a changed world: ‘Investigative reporting in the web era’
• Jon Bernstein: Where now for accountability journalism?
• TheStar.com: Alternative funding avenues for investigative journalism