Comments on: Journalist’s career wiped by The New York Times

By: Thomas Crampton

Thomas Crampton — Sun, 17 May 2009 10:48:00 +0000

@Pete

Yes, if you think there is a role of “public good” that should come from journalism – which I do – then erasing the past is a terrible thing.

Erasing a newspaper’s digital archives is equivalent to going to every library that has copies of the paper and destroying them.

Tom

By: Pete Blakemore

Pete Blakemore — Sat, 16 May 2009 08:50:54 +0000

Although I don’t think it’s right (and morally is not the correct word here), they own the work that a journalist puts into print. They have a right to do with it what they want, although how wiping all of his work out can benefit them beyond having more space is beyond me. It’s the bigger question of erasing the past.

By: John Pospisil

John Pospisil — Mon, 11 May 2009 02:34:55 +0000

Great point about the links Thomas; it’s just stupid for the NYT to close the website down without considering the benefits of all that lovely link juice. I’d happily host the site! ;-)

By: Cindy Sue Causey

Cindy Sue Causey — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:25:56 +0000

Was thinking the saving a copy angle, too, but then realized the deeper impact of this on Thomas: The loss of credibility as having been an NYT writer for that many articles via being able to actually point to their existence online.. At least with some *serious* digging, print journalists can bring evidence of their work even 100 years after it was done by way of, say, [microfilmed] copies at libraries, for example..

On that smaller level you mentioned, Dave, I’m there in my even smaller own little nook.. After all that [garbage] last year about blogs being locked down willy-nilly as well as issues with hosts, I think I basically froze *completely* with respect to writing..

Finally in a forward motion again as I tried to find that path most likely to be here even two years after my own last Breath.. Unfortunately, not a whole lot on the Net necessarily feels that particularly stable this very sec, what with all the seemingly constant impending gobbling up of favorite “smaller” websites by larger ones along with the here-at-noon-gone-this-evening’ness of others..

Cyber hugs from Talking Rock.. :)

By: Aquaadverse

Aquaadverse — Sun, 10 May 2009 22:19:48 +0000

Thanks for the clarification, Thomas.

The NYT tried and failed to move the subscription model to the web and failed.

By: Jeffrey T.Maxfield

Jeffrey T.Maxfield — Sun, 10 May 2009 22:01:18 +0000

Are you saying that he did not keep copies of his own work? What justice? He lost all control over his content when he sold it to the New York Times.
Would I be able to seek damages if the person I sold my car to decided to turn it into scrap metal.

By: DavidB

DavidB — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:17:13 +0000

No doubt the NYT will restore the content online as soon as they figure out a way tp monetize all that supposed linking Thomas. It becomes more clear every day that NYT exists solely to monetize content, the “journalism” of their past has long since disappeared.

By: Thomas Crampton

Thomas Crampton — Sun, 10 May 2009 13:10:07 +0000

@aquaadverse
I have many copies of my articles and most – but not all – were successfully uploaded to Lexis/nexis by the IHT/NYT.

The issue is not that – or me for that matter. The issue is that the NYT has squandered the net of links back to the IHT from across the web.

Anyone going to a posting about an article recommended by a blogger is now sent to a generic search page to look for it.

For now at least, that generic search page does not include the IHT archive.

Presuming the IHT archive is uploaded to the NYT, the power of all those links that gave the IHT website a google rank of 9 will be lost. Also, you will frustrate readers who have to search for the article.

By: aquaadverse

aquaadverse — Sun, 10 May 2009 09:11:31 +0000

Why didn’t he save a copy of his articles? How hard is it to click on save as…prior to uploading to the paper?