Friends-
In May, many of us joined in a conversation about the news. In the past year, we have seen many newspapers struggle and in some cases fail. We have seen local television news cut back and stations merge. Increasingly, we have seen people go online for news and information, to traditional news sites, blogs, and social sites like Gather.
Gather members discuss the news every day. Members are eyewitnesses to events around the world and often report them here. They also share expert knowledge and personal perspective on events happening elsewhere.
In May, I asked whether the community would like us to bring traditional news to Gather. Many members responded that they would like to talk more about the news with friends here. Others reflected that they do not discuss the news on traditional news sites because their friends are not present, but may be more likely to do so on Gather. Some felt that their news needs were met other places and they were not interested in consuming news here.
After this initial conversation (and a few deeper dives), we decided to try adding traditional news to Gather. I am pleased to report that you will find news from the Associated Press on the site starting tomorrow at news.gather.com. We selected the Associated Press as the first news provider because members asked that we seek balanced news coverage. If we decide to broaden our news sources in the future, we will seek to diversify the perspectives shared here without biasing toward either side of the equation.
Please allow me to answer a few questions that I suspect will arise as well:
- How often will content be added to news.gather.com? News will be added throughout the day, as soon as it is made available by the AP.
- Can members still submit news and commentary to the news.gather.com group? Absolutely, and we expect the addition of the AP content may increase readership. MaryAnne has explained new ways to tag your content to be sure it appears in the homepage. Please note: improperly tagged content will not be admitted to the group so please be sure to tag accurately (e.g. content tagged “sports” will not be admitted if it is about politics).
- Will the Associated Press content compete for points with other content on the site? No. The AP content will not receive points from our points pool.
MaryAnne has shared more detail about the release. We would love your feedback when the new news.gather.com goes live early tomorrow morning. I’ll be back to chat about the release more tomorrow. Please let us know what you think!
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Comments: 161
good to hear!!
Excellent!!
I feel that this is a good addition for Gather.
Thanks
I will be here bright and early to check it out. Thanks Tom.
Clear and precise.
It might serve to be quite interesting and get some conversations going.
I like new toys ;-)
sounds great
Very cool, Tom. Any plans to import syndicated content in other areas (e.g., sports)?
My general take is that we need a more robust sports solution down the road. I'd love suggestions about where you find the best sports news.
On the net is where I get most of my news
I think this is a great idea
Great move, Tom. I especially appreciate your effort to use an unbiased news source.
Neat.
ok. Hope it enhances Gather as well as expected. :)
this ought to be fun!
I'd love to be able to contribute items for AP syndication. As a member now, could gather do that? It would increase Gather's impact and add prestige. (It wouldn't hurt your contributors either.)
I'd love to chat about how editorial validation might work. The AP would certainly want to validate member sources if they used content originating here. Since we don't have our own editorial process yet, what do you think that ought/would need to be?
I really would like to know if our conversations will be picked up by the News Media {AP wireservices}?
Please see my note (just above) to Richard for more detail.
We do have friends who have some great Poems and Books they would love to publish. If we could pick and choose to publish to the AP or block, that would be great, on our individual pages.
Sounds Great
That's exciting!! I can't wait!
Tom,
Will AP content appear in search results on Gather, as well as community listings (the "Hot Topics on Gather" module, popular content, etc.)?
Also, will members earn points for viewing AP content at the same rate as other content on the site?
Currently, it appears in the popular and recent content modules. We are reviewing those modules and how this works in practice to see if that makes sense. Based on comments below, I suspect we may want to modify that for recent comments lists.
Member points earnings will be the same for viewing AP content as other content.
Thanks Tom. I think the addition of news sources to Gather can be beneficial to the community. However I was, and remain, concerned that this content will marginalize member contributions.
Cool!
Interesting!
Is it going to be like the old days, long before you were born? I remember the thrill when the AP feed machine started click-click-clicking away with a news bulletin. That and the smell of newsprint ink. Back then we were only a few who had up-to-the-minute news. Everyone else had to wait for the paper to hit the streets.
And, I'm not all that old! Things have changed a great deal since my J-school days of the early '70s. ;-)
`sounds neat
My family take two newspapers a day (3 on Sundays) plus watch BBC news and Channel 4 news.
That's enough.
This is gonna be interesting.
I'll be interested to see whether it truly is news from around the world or all US based...seems to me that although Gather members are not necessarily US-centric, Gather itself most assuredly is.
You're not wrong, Flit!!!!
Gather doesn't really seem to value us 'foreigners'!
That doesn't mean that we don't value our member's around the world, though. We just need to make sure we grow at a sustainable rate.
Sounds good, Tom. I'm looking forward to the seeing this new feature once the upgrade is finished.
The Associated Press... balanced? And... internet friendly?
Oooookaaaaay.
That said, let me touch on a couple of pertinent points. The AP has been at the forefront of efforts to roll back fair use laws, specifically as they relate to online content. They've attempted to push the idea that even using short excerpts from any AP story, fully credited and linked to the original content, should be illegal. They've used bullying tactics, including threatening takedown notices, to stop bloggers from doing what has been universally considered fair use for over a century. Their argument seems based on the specious claim that due to the nature of the internet what was once fair is now intolerably unfair. To them. They're failing miserably in this effort, but that hasn't stopped them from making a pathetic public spectacle of themselves.
In addition, it is my opinion that the AP has been among the worst offenders in the area of parroting conservative talking points for a long time. That is not to say that they never produce content which is sympathetic to, and even in favor of, policies which are generally associated with liberal politics. I mean that the overall tone and slant of their content clearly favors the advancement of the conservative political agenda. In the run-up to the 2006 congressional election, it became quite clear that they were prepared to abandon any pretense of impartiality, to further that end.
Between their Draconian interpretation of their ownership rights, and their obedient promulgation of right-wing ideology, a lot of people have given up considering them a valid source for news. Permanently. They're not quite as bad as Fox News yet, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.
The most interesting thing about the AP, at this point, is watching them commit suicide while thrashing about in their death throes looking for someone to blame.
Interetsing
i think that is a great step to take. very interesting to a lot of people on here, me included. thank you tom for the update.
Well, at least it drowns out the spam.
(It reminds me of the summer of 2005 when the article list was dominated by pages and pages of content from American Public Radio, but that's mostly because there wasn't much else content-wise back then...)
Very annoying. If I want to read the news, I'll go to my browser home page.
It was fun getting news from Gather members. They would post what was important to them and that gave the place here personality. You could depend on who would post a story on a certain kind of topic. Some people here ONLY post political stories. That might all go away as AP bowls them over.
I've been to the news group, viewed a couple of the featured articles and yes, they are world-wide news and I like it.
For anyone who wants to see members' content, instead of just the features, which at least from what I'm hearing, will be APs' content - go to the group and click on "Posts", where you ought to be able to find others' content as well.
I think the AP is one of the most unbiased around, so I also think Gather made a good choice, and I've already found a couple of articles there, that I didn't know about.
Marilyn
If I want news, I check out a news site . . . like CNN. Not Gather. Gather for me is about the membership and what they create. I wish you guys felt the same :(
Our goal isn't to replicate CNN or Yahoo. What's special here is the Gather community and the knowledge and perspective shared by that community. We want to encourage htat sharing in all it's forms (including comments).
If we find that the AP content is getting in the way of other conversations, we can always change how/where it appears or remove it. We'll be watching carefully to see how it affects site use. We will be listening closely to members as they get used to the experience as well. And perspectives like yours will be helpful in our learning process.
YET ASSOCIATED PRESS CAN? I DON'T GET IT!
They do it by having ownership, thus editorial control, of the entire main stream media which has been most exemplified by the FOX network who informs the faithful Right how things are ... the bulk of the rest of the media (BTW, all major publishing houses are also controlled by the same folks) is then only "Liberal" by design to the degree it takes, in comparison to FOX, to "fool" everyone else (especially the Liberals) into believing so, so that they will foolishly continue to trust it as "their" "reliable" source.
PS ... Because FOX is so vocal about it in defaming and badmouthing the Left completely out of proportion to the truth of the matter, to the degree they are believed, even a large amount of the Left, not to mention the moderates, tend to "move themselves" away (to the Right) so as not to appear quite so "bad" as portrayed by said media.
Gather is a social networking site not a professional news organization. We come here to discuss and share our opinions. Don't continue this trend of allowing news feeds from AP and others or people will leave to find what you did so well here just a short time ago.
We also value member conversations here. We know that members like to discuss what's happening in the world. We know that they like to share that perspective with friends. Our hope is that the AP content will serve as a starting point for a conversation between members. And that conversation will bring learning and additional information as well.
I believe Gather is a special place because we bring great people together. We make it easy for people to make new friends who share their interests. And we provide a space where people can learn from one another, whether that learning happens through original content creation or the conversation that follows. It's our goal to facilitate and encourage both that original content and great conversations here on the site.
I do appreciate your feedback, Carla, and we will watch carefully to be sure that member content is the most visible on the site. We'll learn a lot in the next three or four days and may make changes after that time. We appreciate your patience as we are learning. Please keep me posted on your thoughts.
And, Sue..MJ is one of the FEW independent newspapers/media outlets left in this country. They bow to no one and I think if you look over their articles for the past years, you will find them extremely impartial, attacking all idiots equally no matter what party, political, or social persuasion. They are one of the few groups to actually do serious investigative reporting anymore.
Sue, you mean that if you don't happen to agree with the facts they present, then they are 'biased'. Ridiculous. Accept the fact that there are indeed 'facts' and that they are true regardless of your political persuasion. You illustrate exactly the problem with news reporting today - people do not tend to believe anything that doesn't align with their political views. And THAT is why we have the problem we have today where we can't get anything done - the fact that propaganda has replaced actual news reporting and the people buy into it.
Grrrrrr.
Yes I understand. Do you understand why I'm unhappy about not being able to find my friends articles without scanning down for miles before I find one?
I like the feature, as it gives us something to read/discuss. But, on the other hand, it is not the same as sharing with an author/member of Gather. Here on Gather we like the personal touch, and giving credit to someone who wrote a well thought out piece. The AP articles seem to be interfering with those who take a lot of time to write articles in which to discuss, and hogging the site, pushing member's articles out of view.
Perhaps the AP's should have a different designated place that doesn't interfere with members who write news articles for discussion.