Deconstructing Connie Shultz's "bilk the bloggers" column, Pt. II

Like a cat with a wounded mouse, I can't just let go.  I'd link to Connie's column, but she, and her employer, apparently objects to bloggers linking to their website content without signing contracts and paying them money.

But Connie's entire case as to the relevancy of her newspaper was to cite the work of one of its reporters (even for the Indians, that's a bad batting average) in bringing down the Cuyahoga County Sheriff.  Of the entire payroll at the Plain Dealer, the work of only one of its reporters can be cited to justify a radical restructuring of our nation's intellectual property laws.  (That dude better getting something better than a membership with the Fruit-of-the Month Club at the end of the year.)

But couldn't that reporter had done the same thing if he were a blogger?  Of course he could have.  Being employed by a newspaper had nothing to do with his ability to (gasp!) do his profession.  Look at Talking Points Memo's Bush U.S. Attorney firing scandal (which resulted in the resignation of AG Alberto Gonzales) or Huffington Post's most recent reporting on what was occuring in Iran after the "elections."

The blog, the Daily Beast, isn't killing the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  How can a blog that almost never publishes information about Cleveland killing the PD?  Maybe Connie will answer that and other criticisms in her next column.

Heck, even look to Matt Naugle's old site on the reporting of Marc Dann and this site's (i.e.- yeah, I'm tooting my own horn) advocacy that Ohio's constitution would suggest that Dann could be impeached over his multiple transgressions.  In that case, the Ohio Democratic leadership adopted the advocated legal position of this blog as their own in the face of blistering criticism by... you guessed it, old media organizations like the Cleveland Plain Dealer which breathless mocked the impeachment drive as somehow illegal even though it had never consulted anyone educated on Ohio constitutional law.

One of the most ridiculous aspects of the memo Shultz promoted was its premise that everything newspapers did was noble and vital to society, but everything anyone else in the media (including bloggers) was somehow parasitic.  As I pointed out in my last post, newspapers are just as much "news aggregators" as blogs or anyone else.  And what the memo does not acknowlege, either out of ignorance or because they just don't want to admit that it happens, is that blogs are a significant source for their news, too.  They (shudder) aggregate news from (gulp!) BLOGGERS.  If newspapers demand an exclusive right to be compensated when others cite their work, then people will just stop citing their work and they'll likely become less relevant.

Either newspapers aggregate news from bloggers, or its just an amazing coincidence that shortly after I cited an Ohio constitutional law hornbook as evidence that Dann could be impeached, the Columbus Dispatch published an interview with the authors of that handbook confirming my analysis that the impeachment clause does not require the commission of a criminal offense as grounds for impeachment.  Or that a Plain Dealer columnist later cited (without attribution) this site's analysis of Fisher's campaign finance reports as evidence that Fisher's finances were not as strong as advertised and likely unable to continue at that pace.

Tim at BloggerInterrupted, OhioDailyBlog, Plunderbund, we're all seen at one time or another our take on the issues of the day passed over anonymously in media reports as what "some people are saying."  Occasionally, a risk taking reporter will go so far as to actually attribute such views as coming from ... BLOGGERS!

It's odd that the Plain Dealer, with its podcasts and blogs, is saying that the printed newspaper, with its massive production and delivery costs, is it's only means of making money.   It's odd that a paper that reports that 10% of the city's population has moved away can't is blaming the Internet for its problems.  The PD's website runs very little ad space on it.  In fact, unless you're looking to run a classified ad that you could run on Craiglist instead, you'd be hard pressed to find anything on the website as to how to buy an online ad its web readers will see.  The law of fair use is the least of the cause of the paper's problems.

We watch our traffic information enough to know it's not just a coincidence.  We're read by reporters just as much as we read them.  That is the relationship between the blogger and the reporter.  Some journalists can live with that.  Others are so arrogant and vain they cannot comprehend treating a blogger as an equal.  When we're commenting on a story in the public interest, we're parasites.  When Connie Shultz does it in order to promote some harebrained idea to protect her employer's corner on the market, it's thoughtful social commentary.  That is until Connie Shultz begins blogging for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"One of us.... one of us.... one of us...."  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!