As a trade/media brand, I think Ad Age is terrific. They are often the originator/source of the kinds of stores which really drive the conversation and lead the industry dialogue.
This morning on Ad Age.com documents a story where an Ad Agency is suing a blogger. I read about this story via adland and posted about it on May 1st. Adland posted about it on April 28th and themselves referenced the Boston Globe, who essentially broke the story first.
Did Ad Age read about it on Jaffe Juice or Adland or even the Boston Globe? Perhaps and perhaps not. I'm definitely not wagging a finger at them in the slightest, but I did want to take a moment to pause and mull over the way the world is changing and also touch a few different scenarios:
1) First of all, it's interesting to trace the thread/emerging meme: from MSM (Globe) to one blog to another and either directly/indirectly/coincidentally abck to MSM (Ad Age) The story's various nodes (think Technorati hits) tell a story in itself
Posts that contain Lance Dutson per day for the last 30 days.
Get your own chart!
2) This is one of the first times where I've blogged a story before Ad Age. Big Whoop and this isn't about patting myself on the back. Most of the time, I catch a breaking story on Ad Age and reference it as such...
3) ...which leads me to this point. Could/should Ad Age "track back" to the blogs like Jaffe Juice possibly and certainly adland for running with the story (whether the story idea came from them or not)? In addition, could/should they credit Boston Globe? I'm always amazed at how MSM never credit another newspaper/magazine who broke the story previously...I think the honor code which exists in the blogosphere is absolutely going to extend to all corners of publishing/journalism etc.
4) This story really just shows how the blogosphere and established media are in fact working together as opposed to against one another...and THAT'S the point of this post. One may not necessarily replace the other, unless of course they are completely duplicative and lacking of any originality/flavor/angle.
Certainly there will be more cases of blogs (especially the larger and more influential ones like Adrants for example) breaking/running with a story before it hits the trades and business dailies - I think the Chevy Tahoe example is a Prime case. Bloggers are generally very good at tracking back - literally and figuratively - to the source/credit of the story.
I guess I'm saying...let's see some more reciprocal love (source, links) back in return (and credit where it's due, Ad Age has been doing a nice job of this in a separate section i.e. best of the rest, which typically includes blogs...hopefully we'll see more of it integrated into the main articles themselves...and again Ad Age did this with their coverage of the Philips patent, referencing Adrants)
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