Is GateHouse Media About to Take on Boston.com?
According to reports, Boston.com plans to launch a line of town-specific sites that will cull content from sources like Boston Daily favorites the Cambridge Chronicle and the Allston-Brighton TAB, which are owned by GateHouse Media. Critics were skeptical, with Dan Kennedy calling the move “hyperlocal journalism on the ultracheap,” and pointing out the potential legal conflicts the Globe could face from GateHouse’s papers (copyright infringement, perhaps?).
It’s a situation GateHouse Media New England President and Publisher Kirk Davis is monitoring very carefully.
“This is just the latest move from the 800-pound gorilla in the market, which is currently weighing in at 200 pounds,” Davis tells Boston Daily, referencing the broadsheet’s financial difficulties. “We’re not surprised the Globe would like to play in our sandbox.”
GateHouse is no stranger to the woes plaguing the print industry. But that doesn’t mean the group will allow its work to benefit the broadsheet.
“If their intentions are that [the Boston.com city sites] become their grand strategy, yeah, we’ll take an issue with it,” Davis says. He stops short of threatening legal action, but does say he’s doing “much more” than waiting and watching to see how much content the Globe appropriates for its community sites.
“Our staff works their butt off in this company in a very tough environment to provide the best local community journalism they can, and for someone else to think that they can design a whole business model over dozens and dozens of communities relying on [their work] is not going to happen,” Davis says.
Stay tuned, kids. The battle between print and online might get a whole lot more litigious.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
GateHouse does publish under the Creative Commons license, which essentially says “go ahead, use our stuff so long as you give us credit.” It’s a philosophy that is somewhat successful if you want to make your content prolific, but does create this kind of problem.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Gatehouse’s Creative Commons License only gives reprint permission for non-commercial use.
I don’t think the Boston Globe applies.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I attended a preview of boston.com’s community sites, and all they are doing is aggragating content from a variety of local sites - just like Google. They are running just a headline and one paragraph, and the headline links back to the original site. Is Mr. Davis going to sue Google, too ?
November 11th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Noah - GateHouse publishes under a Creative Commons license for “non-commercial use.” I can’t imagine that would cover the Globe.
November 11th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
The question of whether what they’re doing is “just like Google” is a good one and I’m not sure it’s easily answered. Google’s feeds are automated whereas these are edited by a human. I know it seems like a trivial difference, but a human is more likely to put out a complete paragraph.
Also, not all Creative Commons licenses are alike. When you set one up you pick and choose your usage, so each piece of content needs to be considered based on its license. What’s more, there’s the letter of the law and then the intent.
I notice that when the TAB or Universal Hub links to something on my site, quite often the ensuing discussions happen THERE, not on my site. Meaning most people don’t bother jumping and instead just take the reduced content. If that’s happening with Boston.com, which is selling ads on that content, then what is the actual result? Does that siphon ad dollars that could support local journalism and instead send it to a regional publication that is not adding to the local conversation?
November 12th, 2008 at 6:58 am
I agree that it simply sounds like “aggregation” similiar to Google and Topix. I think it is a good strategy by Boston.com and one that will also benefit the sites they aggregate. I think Boston.com’s goal is to insure that they remain the “starting place” for local news in their DMA. I know that over the years I’ve used Boston.com less and less because the content they seem to stress on the homepage is more national stories or stories you can find anywhere. A move to more hyperlocal stuff, to me, is smart and will help them keep their audience coming back.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
He wasn’t “referencing” anything. He was referring to it.
November 13th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
gate house is one of the best printing and publushing companies out their do to it’s top journalist, their for they can get news around the world just like google. the diffrence is that gate house has actual jurnalist publushing.
Their for it can do more.
November 14th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Honestly, it’s the exact same thing they’ve told us to do with their “news now” initiative, to cull from other sources and link back until we have our own version of a story.
In the end it will just be another excuse for GHMNE to screw its employees and reporters.