Thursday, January 22, 2009

What are those idiots at the top level of GateHouse Media thinking?

When GateHouse Media officials decided to file a lawsuit against the New York Times for adding links, headlines, and the first sentence or two of stories from GateHouse papers, many of us were wondering, "What are those idiots thinking?"

Thousands of people who would probably not seek out the GateHouse papers are being directed to their sites, which obviously increases traffic, and should therefore increase money.

The GateHouse lawsuit also threatens other news aggregators, and even bloggers who often send traffic to GateHouse Media articles.

According to an article published by Nieman Journalism Lab, it appears that even GateHouse Media's top internet guru, Howard Owens, does not think much of the lawsuit, and the Times, in its response say GateHouse is doing the same thing with the Batavian, its first all-internet publication.

The story provides fascinating insight into a ridiculous lawsuit filed by a company that filed suit and then had to tell its own internet publications to stop doing the same thing it claimed was costing it money when done by the Times.

Now that takes a lot of nerve.

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