U.S. seeks to restrict gifts made to bloggers
by Amy Schatz and Miguel Bustillo, The Wall Street Journal
Oct. 6, 2009
TOPICS: federal regulations, journalism ethics
SUMMARY: Bloggers who receive money or freebies in response to online product reviews or favorable comments must disclose those gifts to their readers or face fines of up to $11,000 per violation.
The Federal Trade Commission issued guidelines that will require that disclosure in order to regulate what has become the Wild West of the World Wide Web.
The FTC said it enacted that rules to protect consumers who might be fooled into believing such reviews without knowing that the blogger/reviewer was being compensated for its positive nature. But First Amendment experts are concerned that the government is getting involved in the regulation.
While these experts say that journalism ethics generally prohibit journalists from accepting gifts from people or companies they write about they are concerned that the government is getting into the regulation business.
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AP Creates registry
to monitor use
of stories Online
by Russell Adams and Shira Ovide
The Wall Street Journal
July 24, 2009
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One of the big controversies involving the growing number of online news sites is how those sites take content from other providers and place that content on their sites.
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Now The Associated Press, provider of much of the nation's news content, has decided to take a hard line with those Web sites that run AP stories without permission.
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The AP has decided to format all of its online stories with a built-in-beacon that will alert the news service when its content is being used. If the Web sites agree with the new rules then they will have to compensate the AP for running the stories. If they do not agree, they will not be able to use the articles in the future.
CEO maps future
at New York Times
by Russell Adams
The Wall Street Journal
July 24, 2009
In the wake of a surprising strong profit at the New York Times, the newspaper's CEO laid out future plans at the company that shows how it plans to take advantage of new media technology.
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In a presentation for advertisers, the Times sought to dispel notions that it did not have any vision for the future of the Internet. The presentation at the company's lab was a vision of what is to come in the next year to two years and how Times content will be distributed and experienced.
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The room replicated a future living room with one large flat screen TV surrounded by four smaller screens. A Twitter message from a friend about a Times video was touched and dragged to one of the screens for viewing.
