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Fifth Column
AP News - The Empire Strikes Back
2009-07-25
Short version: Associated Pravda Press is threatening blogs, commenters, everyone with an exaggerated and illegal interpretation of "Fair Use". DO NOT excerpt entire articles from the AP. If you excerpt part, comment on it (with stupid snark as I do, or informed opinion as "some" others find useful). Eventually, the AP will figure out that this is as useful as the NYT "paid readers" program....
Posted by:Frank G

#7  So we can't use AP propaganda anymore?
Geez, there goes half our stuff...
Posted by: tu3031   2009-07-25 22:13  

#6  Hurray! This apparent suicide is heaven's gift to advocates of a genuinely free press as envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

AP, along with Reuters and a few now extinct dinosaur wire servies, created the myth that the media are, or even should be, unbiased. The idea of an unbiased press would have seemed quite alien to the Founding Fathers. Every rag proudly blared its agenda right from the masthead. Only with the wire services, feeding the same news to a number of different outlets, did the pretense of neutrality become important. Since this is impossible by its very nature, the wire services had to keep their biases subtle. Eventually, as the primary sources, they came to set the agenda themselves for lazy subscribers. The superficial pretense of neutrality is also effective cover for the contrarianism and nihilism that characterize the internal culture of the media-industrial complex: Their affinity for terrorists and criminals can be effectively disguised as "presenting the other side" and the "other point of view" without the messy consequences of admitting that this is, in fact, their own point of view.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2009-07-25 17:31  

#5  Not half bad for an engineer.

considering how bad so many write, that's a backhanded compliment, but thanks :-)
Posted by: Frank G   2009-07-25 16:10  

#4  with stupid snark as I do

Bullshit, Frank. You write better and smarter than the AP (not that that's saying much.) Not half bad for an engineer.
Posted by: Matt   2009-07-25 15:55  

#3  One type of suicide serves the purpose about as well as another. Maybe if they hurry they can catch up with NYT on the road to oblivion.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon   2009-07-25 14:16  

#2  They are going the way of the RIAA in subcontracting both discovery and threatening email approach. However, wits are already innovating ways to screw up their game.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2009-07-25 10:42  

#1  Well, these useful idiots will end up with less influence than the other useful idiots.
Posted by: gorb   2009-07-25 01:41  

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