Note To Online Newspapers: Stop Removing Old Content

from the just-trying-to-help dept

One of the more annoying things with many online versions of newspapers is that they constantly "retire" old content. Different news organizations have different policies, but the sites go away after a certain period of time. That's annoying for sites like ours where we link to those news sources. When we go looking for more information later, our links go to nowhere. So why is this a particularly pointless business practice for newspapers? Newspapers that keep their content online are finding that as much as a third of their traffic is to old stories. That's one-third of your online revenue from ads, and you're just throwing it away. Storage is cheap, so the cost of keeping the content online can't be that high, but the cost of not keeping it online (and at the same link!) seems to be huge.
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  1. identicon
    Anonymous, 10 Nov 2005 @ 11:42am

    No Subject Given

    As a consumer I totally agree as well. Not only is it annoying for users but it makes the newspaper look bad becasue of the non working links.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Boofar, 10 Nov 2005 @ 11:45am

    wire services

    I was told by the Albany Times-Union that the AP wire services REQUIRE their member papers to remove stories from their websites after two weeks.

    If this is true, yell at the AP :)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Aaron de Oliveira (profile), 10 Nov 2005 @ 11:48am

    Re: wire services

    I think this has mostly to do with the money they make from selling their archives.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Dam, 10 Nov 2005 @ 12:36pm

    Re: wire services

    Sometimes it's archives, sometimes policy - policy made by off-line clowns that DON'T GET IT!!

    Maybe we need a 7 day waiting period to access the internet

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    thecomputerguy, 10 Nov 2005 @ 12:48pm

    The reason..

    The reason many newspapers remove older stuff is because they try to charge people for reading it later on. The New York Times is a prime example.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Chris H, 10 Nov 2005 @ 1:35pm

    No Subject Given

    This drives me nuts. I was trying to find archived articles of a murder that happened across the street from me years ago and I couldn't find anything about it anywhere, not even searching on the name of the murderer.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Scottitude, 10 Nov 2005 @ 1:53pm

    Re: Dumb Practice

    I frequent at least one online community that suggests users copy and paste entire articles (including source info) into their forum posts to ensure the future availability of discussion topics.
    Yes, in most cases this constitutes a copyright violation but it does keep everything in context and everyone completely informed.
    If private bloggers can Permalink their posts, it's a given that huge publishers can, too. Of course, whether the publishers understand the reality and value potentially unlimited ad-revenue over selling access to archived articles remains to be seen.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    jeremiah, 10 Nov 2005 @ 8:48pm

    No Subject Given

    I'd not really pondered the economic ramifications of archival access. You're right, TD: this is a huge "Duh!" for the newpapers. Good catch.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Newob, 11 Nov 2005 @ 3:36am

    Wikinews

    I don't believe Wikinews retires old articles. Plus, their news is freely editable and you can't be charged for it! And DRM is agains their document license, too.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Dario, 11 Nov 2005 @ 6:48am

    Why couldn't TD just keep a copy

    Rather than link to the article on the News site, wouldn't it be fair-use to link AND make a copy of the article. When the link dies, just auto-forward to the copy.

    Have I missed the issue somehow?

    D

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    Mike (profile), 11 Nov 2005 @ 9:05am

    Re: Why couldn't TD just keep a copy

    If we made a copy, we'd be accused of copyright infringement.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Rufus Jenkins, 13 Nov 2005 @ 7:50am

    I agree

    Come on NYTimes.com, scan in all your editions from 1851 to the present. Who wants to go to the library and look at film?

    And get rid of that login thingie also.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Brian, 14 Nov 2005 @ 9:49am

    Re: I agree

    It's just a matter of time unil the newspaper archives are scanned and indexed. It can't happen immediately for every newspaper in the country. Especially in an industry that has a declining revenue stream.

    The New York Times is a business, not a national charity to provide information to everyone. Why not slam movie studios for not putting up all movies they've ever made online so they could be watched for free?

    I think newspapers would leave content up forever if there was advertising revenue to support doing so. That is, if they didn't have to rely on it as revenue to offset declining circulation and more expensive newsprint.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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