Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine has a great, in-depth editorial that ties together two stories I’ve covered in the last few days: the ongoing debate about the “hot news” doctrine and Rolling Stone getting beaten to the web with its own story, the controversial interview of General McChrystal.
Jarvis casts the “hot news” case in a light of old media versus new media, and takes a detailed look at two briefs filed in the case—one from a conglomerate of old media companies, and the other from Google and Twitter.
Jarvis refers here to the New York Times story by David Carr that I cited in my own article:
The architecture of news and media — how it is gathered and shared — has changed utterly since 1918 … and 1998. That’s what makes the Rolling Stone story instructive. McChrystal’s quotes leaked and spread instantly, having significant and instant impact on news and the affairs of state. The fact of the quotes was hot news indeed. As I asked four days ago, under hot news, would the magazine have been able to prevent others from repeating these facts? Ridiculous, no? Because Rolling Stone did not publish its own story online and because it was so hot, Politico and Time published PDFs of it — even though Time is a party to the Fly brief — which Carr perhaps rightly scolds them for. But maybe he should also scold Rolling Stone for not recognizing the importance of its news and recognizing the opportunity in sharing it. Once Rolling Stone did put the story on the web, the other publications linked to it. The link economy works when given a chance. So does the First Amendment.
The Google-Twitter brief notes that trying to put a monopoly on facts, which can now be instantly globally disseminated by anyone with a cell phone, is pointless and could do considerable damage to modern journalism. Even old news organizations already use each others’ facts without attribution all the time—as they are entitled to do by law.
This article is one of the best summaries I’ve yet seen of why the “hot news” doctrine is asinine and should not be allowed to stand. Hopefully the courts will rule the right way.
