AP To Credit Bloggers

The Associated Press said this week that it will start crediting other news publishers -- including newspapers that aren't members, online publications and bloggers -- when those publications break a story first.

"In the age of the Web, the sourcing and reliability of information has become ever more crucial," the AP states in an advisory about the new policy. "We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it's U.S. based; and whether or not it's an AP member or subscriber."

In the past, many mainstream news organizations, including the AP, have been slow to credit any other potential competitors, ranging from daily newspapers to bloggers, for their reporting. But the AP's advisory isn't remarkable just for setting out a new policy for crediting others. The advisory is even more notable for attempting to straddle the line between drawing on other publications' reporting and misappropriating their "hot news" -- or summarizing their time-sensitive scoops.

While not every news organization thinks the hot news doctrine is valid, the AP has argued in court -- in a lawsuit against All Headline News -- that rewrites of the AP's time-sensitive articles constitute a misappropriation. The AP takes the position that such summaries violate the hot-news doctrine when they are systematic and continuous -- but there are very few court cases interpreting those terms.

It's easy to see why a news publisher would be tempted to allege that other companies are free-riding on its work, but it's even easier to see how that stance could backfire on reporters who rely -- and often build on -- tidbits that were originally discovered by a competitor. After all, if every reporter who summarized another publication's scoop faced the threat of a misappropriation lawsuit, journalists might be far warier to incorporate other news organizations' reporting, much less credit them.

The AP's advisory doesn't offer much practical guidance on this point. It states only: "It's important to note that we shouldn't use facts from a non-member news organization, even with credit, so frequently that we appear to be systematically and continuously free riding on that organization's work."