It’s an all-out Web battle between two of the largest media organizations functioning in Mass. But the online fight between The New York Times Coroporation via The Boston Globe and GateHouse Media (publishers of more than 100 weekly newspapers in Massachusetts) could have far-reaching ramifications when the dust finally settles.
For those of you new to the fray, The Globe recently launched a community site in Newton — Your Town Newton — a site that functions largely as an aggregator of Web content dealing with Newton. The problem? GateHouse, owners of The Newton Tab and Wicked Local Newton, say most of the content on the Globe’s site is theirs. I’ll couch my comments right up front by saying I’m a former managing editor for GateHouse Media, so, my perspective is undoubtedly skewed slightly.
Here’s a look at the two sites:
GateHouse’s site, Wicked Local Newton with content from the Newtwon Tab.
Boston.com’s Web site, with news also from the Newton Tab as well as The Globe and other sources.
What’s the hullabaloo about? The Globe would have you believe GateHouse is suing the media giant for simply linking to their stories. And what’s wrong with that? Anyone who’s spent any amount of time on the Web knows a good site always links to outside sources. You link to other sites to make your site more useful and informative. You hope other people link to you to improve your reach and traffic. And the Globe says that’s all they’re doing. But it’s a little more complex than that. The GateHouse suit addresses not so much the linking to their content, but what in some cases appears to be the almost exclusive use of its content to populate a site the Globe is theoretically making money on. Without GateHouse content, the site would be much more sparsely-populated. GateHouse alleges they’re doing all the work by reporting on local issues and news while The Globe is doing little more than putting up their own site and taking GateHouse content. The question is, where is the line drawn? At what point does my creating a site and populating it almost entirely with your hard work constitute an infringement? Until now, this is not a line that has officially been drawn on media Web sites. And that’s what makes this case so interesting.
But there’s something else to consider. The Globe’s Newton site gives you a headline and a summary and then if you click on the story, you go right to GateHouse’s site. So, in the end, GateHouse is theoretically getting more traffic — something they want.
Taking a look at the Globe’s Newton site today, I see a pretty good mix of Globe content, GateHouse content and other sources. I also found myself time and time again back at the GateHouse sites by clicking on the headlines. What The Globe has done is pretty clever. They’ve created one central place where you can pick up ANY news about your town regardless of the media source. Has this been done before? Sure. But not by a competing news organization. And that’s really what this entire controversy boils down to. Both organizations are in the business of covering community news. Once could understand the rub GateHouse feels, which set out several years ago to create self-proclaimed “wicked local” sites. The question is, has The Globe gone too far? Or has GateHouse not gone far enough? Should they be aggregating The Globe’s content to bolster their own coverage?
