Re: "hot news" myth

From: James Love <love[_at_]cptech.org>
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 13:06:57 -0400 (EDT)

On Sun, 1 Jun 1997, Bob Penn <thresshold[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
>
> If there is no protection for hot news, then there is no incentive to
> gather such news. Why would a news organization pay the enormous costs
> it takes to employ staffs around the world to gather hot facts if their
> competitors did not have to hire any staff, but simply appropriate the
> news gathered by the first company as its own? Absent the incentive
> to gather, the public loses access to this information.

    Does anyone doubt that news organizatons do in fact spend money to gather news, despite the generaly poor level of protection for "hot news"? The fact that news organizations frequently (very frequently) report (hot) news that others uncovered probably has a good deal of efficiency benefits too. Fewer reporters are needed to cover breaking events, and more people receive timely news (through a plethora of news outlets).

   Jamie

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James Love | Center for Study of Responsive Law | P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 | love[_at_]cptech.org | Voice 202/387-8030 | Fax 202/234-5176 | Current Projects: Consumer Project on Technology: http://www.cptech.org | Antitrust: http://www.essential.org/antitrust

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Received on Mon Jun 02 1997 - 17:05:41 GMT