Newspapers, WIAA at odds over photos, video

From what I remember, most of the Wisconsin papers sell photos from the web. It's Gannett, and they make a buck every where they can.

 

I hate 'cause I can. I'm like that chick from the Onion, the Hater. I hate America, the American way of life, pretty much anything and everything.
And, as previously noted, the papers are wrong, the WIAA is right. They license state tournament coverage to entities with a financial interest in being there. The newspapers intent is no longer strictly journalism, but to make a profit by adding additional services that other places are already paying to do.
The newspapers are so wrong on this one, but they'll stick to their guns, and say they'll cover the games from the stands before agreeing to follow the rules that are already laid out.
So what the papers are really asking for is more special treatment. Screw those commercial guys and their attempts to make a living, we're The Paper, you do what we tell you to do.

 

Again, Luggy is right. A TV station does a similar thing, and there's a court case pronto.

 

Oz, I'm not quite sure I see your point. You say you don't believe in photo galleries because it's a lot of extra work for someone.

To me, that's like saying you don't believe in feature stories because it involves actual reporting and interviewing.

Or am I completely missing the point?

And Riddick, there are many, many other papers in Wisconsin that aren't Gannett. This isn't a Gannett thing.

 

This thread has been helpful. I certainly see the flip side now.

FTR, lantaur, if our photo folk are to be believed, we (family-owned Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph Herald) make pretty decent coin selling extra online photos.

 

There should be a middle ground, but no one wants to see it. The local paper here does online photo galleries of high school cheerleaders from football games. I'm sure there's one reason for it -- cash. For anyone thinking that those galleries don't yield cash for the papers, they do, otherwise they wouldn't spend the time posting the photos online.

 

I think photo galleries have more value as a hits padder. If you look at one photo gallery with 50 images and click through all of them, that's 50 hits to the site (and whatever advertiser accompanies the gallery). Five people that view the entire gallery equals 250 people that read one story.

 

You're completely missing the the point. For some papers, it's simply not practical, given the time and/or money to do it.

At the former stop, I already worked 60 hours a week, you think I would bust my ass to load 50-plus photos per story to appease people who want to see a photo gallery? Might as well make my standard work week 80 hours then.

At my current stop, labor laws make it a problem because we push photog hours as it is. Spare me the speech about how we ought to sink more hours if it gives readers what they want, unions won't buy that argument.

As for, "To me, that's like saying you don't believe in feature stories because it involves actual reporting and interviewing." Not really. With photo galleries, you've shot the assignment, it's what you do with it after the fact. So it would be more like writing an 80-inch game story with the reporting and quotes you gathered because you can. Or writing three sidebars for some random regular season game because you can.

 

Oz, I apologize for missing the point. I went back over and read your posts. I missed a few, and mistakenly took your comments to mean that because you didn't have the capabilities of doing it meant that nobody else should either.

Carry on.

 

Not a problem. It's frustrating that sometimes you can't do more, but you go with the cards you're dealt and play them the best you can.