Among them are friends like Joi Ito, who now heads of the MIT Media Lab and who launched my blogging career by inviting me to write on his blog, along with Dan Gillmor who always has a fascinating take on the future of journalism. Meredith Artley, who was a colleague at the International Herald Tribune and who is now the vice president of digital at CNN as well as Paul Steiger from Pro Publica, the investigative news startup.

With this great line-up, they keen to find China speakers to talk about the online world, news and journalism. Below is a note written by the organizer, Bertrand Pecquerie.

Do you know the right people to suggest from China? Email Bertrand.

Tom

Object:
News World Summit (NEWS!) to be held in Hong Kong from 27 to 30 November 2011

My name is Bertrand Pecquerie and I am the CEO of the Global Editors Network gathering editors-in-chief and senior news executives from all platforms (print, broadcast, digital, mobile…). We are 400 members from 50 different countries.
See http://www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/gen-members/ and our Manifesto: http://www.globaleditorsnetwork.org/manifesto/

We are organizing our first major event in Hong Kong from 27 to 30 November and it is called NEWS! for News World Summit. We will be around 400 editors-in-chief from 80 countries and we expect a strong participation from China.

At the moment, my main request is about Chinese speakers: we need very innovative speakers about media convergence, future of journalism and newsrooms’ strategies. Please contact me for sharing ideas, suggestions and I will come back to you asap: bpecquerie AT globaleditorsnetwork DOT org

This year, our motto is “Go East! What to learn from Asian Media”
Our main themes are: Adopt a four-screen strategy (mobile, tablet, PC, ipTV), When your smartphone becomes your newsroom, paywalls and paid-for apps, visual journalism and data journalism.
URL: http://www.news-worldsummit.org/
(programme in Chinese, see the Home Page)

40 Keynotes and speakers (including Thomas) will share their views on why news brands have to rethink media convergence and news cycles:

- Joichi Ito, Director of the Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
- Steve Grove, Head of News, YouTube
- Wadah Khanfar, Director General, Al Jazeera Network
- Meredith Artley, Vice-President, CNN digital
- Per Mikael Jensen, CEO, Metro International
- Paul Steiger, Editor-in-Chief and Founder, ProPublica
- Dan Gillmor, media thinker…

We want to set up the Summit as an exchange between Europe, the Americas, Africa and China and we consider Chinese innovations and best practices are still unknown by editors from around the world, especially regarding mobile news and mobile journalism.

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions

Bertrand Pecquerie, CEO
www.globaleditorsnetwork.org
www.twitter.com/editorsnet
www.facebook.com/editorsnet
www.youtube.com/GlobalEditorsNetwork

To excerpt the words “financial terms were not disclosed” from an article about about Amazon buying Woot, the AP wants me (or any blogger) to pay US$17.50.

To me, this raises quite a few legal questions:

• Does that mean that I need to pay for this reference? (Disclosure: I did not pay US$17.50 to AP)
• What about “fair use”?
• Does one news organization now need to pay another for making reference to their scoop?
• Will AP charge for me making a link to their article? (If they do not charge for a link, how can I make reference to the article in a way that does not make me liable for being charged?)

They have made the charging aspect highly efficient, but raises many questions. (Perhaps it is clear to greater minds than me – please enlighten me!)

UPDATE: Hilariously, W00t has sent a bill to the AP for the quotes taken from the W00t blog.

(h/t to Danny Sullivan)

More on the conference via Twitter hashtag: #IMCHK

In his speech Reg highlighted three interesting sites worth checking out for the way they relate to the future of news gathering:

Living Stories: An experimental Google site that aggregates articles around news as it develops, taking in all news from the Washington Post and The New York Times.
Muckety: A site that shows relationships between people and organizations graphically and dynamically
Politifact: A site that fact checks statements by politicians against their performance; what is unique the information is structured in such a way that you can see aggregation of statements and findings over time. A sort report card for politicians. Check out the Obameter!

Here’s how it works: You chalk off the wheel into numbered sections and place your bets. When you land at the next destination, the person who placed their money on the section closest to the wheel shaft wins!

Newspapers need to become more “webby” to keep up in an increasingly disrupted news industry, Marissa said.

Consumers demand hyper personalised news streams and digital portability, so newspapers need to change their overall digital strategy. One medium does not transfer directly to another, Marissa said, so the idea of putting traditional articles on the web is simply wrong.

Newspapers should learn from a site like Wikipedia to develop living stories which will allow continuous updating while avoiding repetition and internal search competition. Newspapers have handled the transition fairly well so far, but they still have a long way to go, Marissa said.

Directly addressing the critics of Google who work in newspaper, Marissa said they should not see Google as the enemy but as part of the solution.

True or just Google’s take?

Newspapers are often called the first draft of history, but they also occasionally rise to the quality of poetry.

This is The New York Sun’s editorial on Lindbergh’s remarkable, courageous and foolhardy solo flight across the Atlantic. (This is The Guardian’s coverage at the time, nice article)

Keep in mind that this editorial was written on deadline with the kind of materials that allow for little revision once the hot type is laid down.

My excuse for posting this? I relate to it on a number of levels, not the least of which that I have twice crossed the Atlantic in small vessels. I sailed a boat from North America to Europe with five other people when I was 19. A few years ago two friends and I flew a small aircraft from Paris to North America. (We had only a few hours flying range, which makes for a challenging hop between Iceland and Greenland.)

LINDBERGH FLIES ALONE

Alone?

With what other companions would man fly to whom the choice were given?

The New York SUN, May 22, 1927

Not surprising to see Hong Kong off the charts, with a combined paid-for and free daily circulation of 590 copies per thousand adults.

What is interesting about Hong Kong is that a huge portion of newspapers (probably 95 percent or more) in the territory are sold off of the newsstands (not via subscription). This creates a fierce tabloid culture where publishers must literally grab readers each day.

Some other highlights:

Newspaper circulation in Asia grew +3.44 percent in 2008 over the previous year, despite the global downturn, and has grown +17.52 percent over the past five years.

The Asian edition, which includes reports on 25 countries and a wealth of summaries that provide a detailed picture of the newspaper market in the region, shows:

  India and China are the world leaders in the newspaper industry, in terms of size. The two countries account for 45 of the world’s 100 largest newspapers. India has more daily newspapers than any other country and leads in paid-for daily circulation, surpassing China for the first time in 2008.

  The number of Asian Internet users rose 23.51 percent last year from a year earlier, to more than 704 million. Over five years, Internet usage jumped 116 percent. There are more broadband subscribers in Asia than any other region – nearly 158 million. The number of broadband subscribers grew 23.33 percent last year and 145 percent over the past five years.

That compares with 123 million broadband subscribers in Europe (up 7.4 percent last year), 97.5 million broadband subscribers in North America (+11 percent), 19 million in South American (+36 percent), 6 million in Australia and Oceania (+6.6 percent) and 2.5 million in Africa (+28 percent).

  Asia also leads the world in the number of mobile cellular subscriptions – nearly 2 billion. The number of subscribers rose by one-quarter in 2008 and by 163 percent from 2004.

That compares with 894 million in Europe (+7 percent in 2008), 425 million in North America (+7 percent), 365 million in Africa (+33 percent), 328 million in South America (+21 percent), and 28 million in Australia and Oceania (+5 percent).

  Paid-for newspaper circulation rose in eight countries in which figures were available last year: Afghanistan (+11.11 percent), Bangladesh (+7.14 percent), Burma (+13.51 percent), Cambodia (+9.09 percent), India (+8.26 percent), Indonesia (+6.86 percent), Nepal (+2.94 percent), and Thailand (+0.68 percent).

Circulation fell in eight countries and territories: Brunei (-8.89 percent), Hong Kong (-2.44 percent), Korea (-1.04 percent), Malaysia (-4.92 percent), Singapore (-1.48 percent), Sri Lanka (-2 percent), Taiwan (-5 percent), and Vietnam (-0.71 percent). Circulation remained stable in North Korea, Laos, Macau, Maldives, Philippines and East Timor. No figures were available for 2008 in Bhutan, China and Pakistan. Japan was excluded from the regional summaries, which focus on the developing markets in the region.

  Over five years, paid-for circulation rose in 15 countries and territories: Afghanistan (+50 percent), Bangladesh (+36.36 percent), Brunei (+64 percent), Cambodia (+20 percent), Indian (+45.5 percent), Indonesia (+12 percent), Laos (+8.7 percent), Macau (+5.6 percent), Malaysia (+71.74 percent), Maldives (+75 percent), Nepal (+27.27 percent), Singapore (+18.69 percent), Thailand (+7.3 percent), East Timor (+50 percent), and Vietnam (+1.45 percent).

Circulation over five years fell in six countries and territories: Burma (-10.64 percent), Hong Kong (-10.31 percent), Korea (-3.28 percent), Philippines (-0.79 percent), Sri Lanka (-2 percent), and Taiwan (-15.56 percent). Circulation was stable in North Korea. No figures were available for Bhutan, China, and Pakistan.

This list was originally composed thinking in terms of a 40-something foreign correspondent who had spent enough years living rough out in the field. Now, with the slashing of newsrooms and foreign budgets, some younger correspondents still in the flush of youth may want to listen to Eric’s sage advice.

This is a video taken of the event.

New Media, MSM and the Business and Journalism Behind Them: A Round-table Discussion from JMSC HKU on Vimeo.

1- Many followers
Among the top 20 economists on Twitter, it appears that Paul Krugman is the most important, by rank of followers.

2- Tweets infrequently
When you look more closely, Krugman’s account really only Tweets his columns.

3- Follows few others
His account is hardly following anyone.

4- Almost never engages in conversation
Krugman has almost no conversations with those whom he is following

5- Very few people retweet
Perhaps because of the infrequency and predictable nature of his Tweets (always about his column), Krugman gets very few re-Tweets.

5- The Krugman Bubble
If you add up the number of people who read the Tweets and re-Tweets of the top economists, it turns out that Krugman is NOT the top economist on Twitter. In fact, measured by reach, he was the 5th largest.

Please note: This data is a couple months old, so may not present a current picture of Twittering economists.

I don’t think Krugman needs to worry very much. He does have a column in The New  York Times that is read by more than a few people. The main point of this exercise is to show that just looking at raw numbers of followers can be misleading with Twitter.

UPDATE: Krugman recently wrote in his blog that someone had stolen his Twitter identity. That would explain why someone who enjoys interacting so much in one Social Media (his blog) did nothing on his Twitter account. It is also interesting to see how big a simple repeater account of a well-known person can grow in Twitter.

1. Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun teamed up with Fujitsu to experiment at a Tokyo Cafe earlier this year.

According to TechOn, customers of “Termina Kinshicho Fujiya Restaurant” could pick up one of four Fujitsu Frontech “FLEPias” (pictured here) for free between Feb 4 and 13, 2009.

Content included: “Mainichi Shogakusei Shimbun” (Mainichi Newspaper for Elementary School Students), advertisements for Fujiya Restaurant and the “Termina” shopping mall, timetables of JR (Japan Railways) trains and weather forecasts.

No word how the test went.

2. Bridgestone erected an e-paper of sorts in a bus stop. Interesting video of it posted on Digital World Tokyo in April last year. Not clear if this is an experiment or something that ran longer. There’s a few more e-readers presented here on Digital World Tokyo.

3. The intriguingly named Nuutbook (left) from Korea is produced by e-ink company Neoluxiim. Their latest product is a solar-powered e-book, arguably the most environmentally friendly way to read a newspaper: It does not cut down trees or use excess amounts of electricity.

According to Rick Kim, they have reach agreements with Chosun Daily, Maeil Economic Daily, Kookmin Daily, Munhwa Daily, Seoul Daily, Digital Times, Yonhap News Agency, and Mainichi (Japan).

Wireless subscription service is said to begin sometime this summer. Interesting that they are working with both Korean and Japanese newspapers. More (in Korean) here.

4. Recently on display at Computex in Taiwan (Text from MIS Asia):

- Netronix showed off several e-readers at the show, ranging from its EB-500 with a 5-inch screen to its EB-600 and EB-600 Cookie, both with 6-inch screens, a prototype for a new 8-inch screen e-reader and its EB-900 with a 9.7-inch screen. The company also offered its Mentor model, which also boasts a 6-inch screen but comes in a variety of colors, including yellow, pink and baby blue. The company says its Mentor e-readers can last for 8,000 page turns on one battery charge, compared to 7,500 for Sony’s PRS-505/SC. Amazon doesn’t break down its battery life into the number of page views. A contract manufacturer, Netronix is looking for big companies to order its e-readers then put their own brand on and sell them.

- Taiwan’s Unihan, a subsidiary of Asustek Computer that develops non-PC products, also displayed an e-reader with a 6-inch screen at Freescale’s office. Unihan is also a contract manufacturer, so it won’t market the device itself. It will sell the design to a customer and then make money on the manufacturing.

- Mary Lou Jepsen’s company, Pixel Qi, has released a netbook-sized 10.1-inch color screen with an e-reader setting that displays everything in black and white while conserving power, which could lead netbook developers to offer the function as an add-on later this year. The screens will be in netbooks before the holidays, Jepsen has said. She was formerly the chief technology officer at One Laptop Per Child.

5. Not an e-reader in the strictest sense, but Kanchoo is an interesting iPhone app from Hong Kong allowing newspapers to reconfigure their publications easily. (Soon to launch, apparently)

6. It is outside of Asia, but IFRA has a few interesting articles on e-readers (mainly in Europe and US).

Much thanks to Jeb Buffinton, Rick Kim, @Kankiknight and @Hedirman for the links!

Any other noteworthy projects out there?

To: All Staff

From: Kuok Hui Kwong

Date: 2 July 2009

To all my colleagues,

It is with regret that I announce Mr. C.K. Lau’s decision to resign from his position as Editor of the South China Morning Post, after a long and distinguished career with us. C.K. discussed with me a couple of months ago regarding his plan to pursue his personal interests.  We have mutually agreed that his last day with us will be 10 July 2009. During his tenure at the Post, C.K. has played a key role in strengthening and improving our editorial operations.  A committed and well-respected professional, he has contributed significantly to the Post and to the overall media community in Hong Kong.

Effective from 13 July 2009, Mr. Reginald Chua will join us as Editor-in-Chief.  On top of managing the day-to-day editorial operations of the Post, Reg will work with me on the long-term strategies for our editorial coverage. Reg has enjoyed a successful career at the Wall Street Journal spanning the past 16 years. He was most recently Deputy Managing Editor at The Wall Street Journal based in New York, where he led, amongst other responsibilities, the development of the Journal’s computer-assisted reporting capabilities and oversaw the paper’s graphics. Prior to moving to New York, he was the Editor of the Journal’s Hong Kong-based Asian edition. Reg graduated with a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics from the University of Chicago. 

Effective the same date, Mr. David Lague will be appointed as Managing Editor. As a member of the newsroom’s senior management team, David will oversee editorial quality and standards, training and projects. He will also be involved in daily news operations. A news and features writer with the South China Morning Post in 1987-88, David returns to the paper after more than two decades as a reporter and editor in the Asia-Pacific region. Most recently, he was a correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times in Beijing. Before joining New York Times Company, he was managing editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. David was also China correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. David graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in science from Murdoch University.

David will work closely with Wang Xiangwei and Cliff Buddle, the Post’s deputies, to help manage the newsroom, steer its coverage, and continue to build on the paper’s strong position.  Xiangwei, Cliff and David will report to Reg.

On behalf of the Board of Directors and the Management of SCMP Group, we express our deep appreciation to C.K. for his contribution and persevering dedication, and wish him the very best in his new endeavours. Please also join me in welcoming Reg and extending your full support to him, and in welcoming David back to Post.

Hui Kuok

Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Comments and thoughts very welcome!

Raju Narisetti, a friend and managing editor of the Washington Post, precedes me in opening the conference, so pressure is on for me to deliver something noteworthy and relevant to the audience.

I fear they will not like much of what I will say:

1- In the two years since leaving my job as a newspaper correspondent I have come to see news as something I can get for free on the Internet. Newspapers are a pleasurable thing to pick up in a coffee shop or airplane that provides them for added service. Almost a luxury item to be savored like a good cigar. (Except that I don’t smoke cigars)

2- In my job as Asia-Pacific director of Digital Influence 360 at Ogilvy, I spend my time speaking with companies about how they no longer need to go through media. By interacting directly with consumers they build a direct bond in a way that was not possible before the Internet. Why pay the “Publisher’s Tax” in going through the media when you can own the relationship yourself?

3- The downward slide of newspapers due to the Internet got steeper due to the economic crisis, but I think it will get steeper still. The capital and maintenance costs of printing presses and distribution systems that once served as barriers to new entrants, now tie down newspapers against more nimble online competitors.

4- In the era of environmental concern, could you imagine inventing a business based on chewing up dead trees, spraying them with ink and then distributing them – on a daily basis – with a fleet of pollution spewing vehicles?

@PB: I totally agree about the value that newspapers and reliable news organizations provide. My concern is how they will finance newsgathering operations. I lament the pain that media now faces and see a real threat to democracy and open society. What I do not see is how to bring in income from news now that the monopoly provided by ownership of a printing press provided.

Some reactions being sent to me by email:
FORMER COLLEAGUE: “Provocative and attention getting. But does make me wonder why you fought so hard to rescue your IHT bylines from the archives of newspapers that you dismiss as “a business based on chewing up dead trees, spraying them with ink and then distributing them – on a daily basis – with a fleet of pollution spewing vehicles?”"

ME: Why did I fight to rescue my bylines? For the blood, sweat and tears. Also, mainstream media has the highest credibility! That is why we need to find a ways to rescue it. I didn’t dismiss the value of journalism, I raised the issue of the environmental impact of newspapers. I remember an amazing chart that showed the number of trees that went into a single copy of the NYT. Incredible number.

ME: Yes, of course a “brand building exercise” could be hurt badly by a great investigative piece by a traditional media (or non-traditional media) outlet. But I am not clear how that point affects my arguments. You still need to find a way to pay for quality journalism. That is the problem I see. It is about business models, not credibility.

“Tom, in case you haven’t gotten a report from Bill Keller’s Q&A session with the newsroom yesterday, he dealt with the IHT links question (which I and apparently somebody else from the IHT had sent in). The migration, he said, was “taking longer than we hoped, but these articles will be accessible through our web site or through Google, by searching” … They had wanted to reconnect the old links, he said, but “reconnecting all those links was an incredibly onerous, expensive, labor-intensive process. We have not entirely given up on the idea that we might do that, but it has not been at the top of our priority list.”"

UPDATE1: At bottom of post an estimate that the bad links are costing the NY Times US$100k per month.

Following my series of postings about The New York Times deleting links to the entire archive of iht.com articles, I just received the below note from Diane McNulty, Executive Director of Community Affairs and Media Relations at The New York Times. (She said I could blog our exchange.)

Thomas,

We are in the process of migrating all IHT original content dating back to 1991 to nytimes.com. We are also working with Google to index the articles so they are searchable on Google.

Some of your articles have already been migrated http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=Thomas+Crampton&srchst=cse. We will be in touch with you when the process is complete.

Best,

Diane M.

In a subsequent email Diane added that there was no formal timing for resolving the situation, but it was a “work in progress”.

While very pleased to hear from The New York Times that they are actively dealing with the issue, this response – without a timetable and without a clear statement about keeping the URLs of iht.com articles – is not substantially different from the message posted since last month every time you try to go to reach the URL of an iht.com article.

(I waited roughly a month before posting about the situation in the hopes that it would get resolved, but it has not.)

Please, former colleagues at the NYT, restore links to the iht.com articles before too many of them go dead.

As Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said in my interview with him about this situation: It is a shame to squander a web property with so many good links.

Killing links to iht.com articles is bad for journalists, readers and NYT shareholders.

UPDATE: I now have an estimate of just how much the bad links are costing NYT shareholders. According to calculations by Rick Burnes of the Global Tech Products blog:

From a business perspective, the NYT is throwing away money — at least $100,000 every month the links are broken. According to Compete.com, IHT.com was getting over 1.5 million visitors/month before it shut down. If a third of those visitors were from search and direct old links, 500,000 visitors a month are hitting the dead end in the image above, instead of the page they were looking for. To buy that traffic from Google at $.20/click, you’d have to pay $100,000 a month. Add that $100,000 to the value of the SEO authority IHT.com accrues from its 3.9 million inbound links, and you have a sense of the money The Times is leaving on the table.

Wales said that since the Wikipedia community picked up on my original blog posting, there has been a feverish debate within the Wikipedia community about what to do.

There are more than 9,000 links within the Wikipedia that go back to IHT stories, which Wales said could place the IHT among the top 10 or so most referenced sites by the online encyclopedia. As one of the most visited websites on the Internet, Wikipedia is a large source of traffic for many news websites.

The iht.com stories referenced in Wikipedia, however, have not been reachable since about one month ago when the iht.com website was merged with The New York Times. Instead of going to a specific story that has been referenced by a Wikipedia entry, readers are now directed to a page where they are given an opportunity to search for stories formerly on the IHT.com site.

Even that archive, however, does not contain the missing IHT stories.

While the stories may eventually be added to the NY Times archive, that really misses the point, Wales said. The New York Times effectively created a black hole on the Internet by removing the links.

The New York Times deleted a highly reference web property from its own portfolio. (Wales uses more colorful language in the below video)

Looking ahead- from the perspective of Wikipedia editors – there may be a reluctance to cite The New York Times if there is no commitment to keeping stories in a static location, Wales said.

“The New York Times needs to make a statement,” Wales said. “It doesn’t have to be a big one, but they should  emphasize they will not change around URLs.”

Full interview with Wales in this video:

Dear Mr. Sulzberger,

Hell hath no fury like a reporter deleted.

I have a major personal and professional gripe against The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune.

For more than a decade, as you know, I enjoyed a wonderful and globe-trotting career at both newspapers. I would recommend anyone to work for these publications. You were a great employer, I had great colleagues and both publications are great to read.

That said, your normally web-savvy team just made one of the most boneheaded moves done by a major news website since the dawn of the Internet.

This image - All that remains online from my Sudan reports.

Despite their small budget and small team, however, the IHT website managed to build an online global media powerhouse often outranking the NY Times website on international stories in Google News.

The IHT website earned an ever-increasing pagerank due to all of the blogs and sites linking to stories there. (Based on the number of Internet pages linking back to a site, pagerank starts at 1 and rises to 10. A page with a Google rank of 5 will show up higher than a page with a Google rank of 3 and the IHT.com grew to match nytimes.com at a Google rank of 9. You can check pagerank of any site here.)

So, what did the NY Times do to merge these sites?

They killed the IHT and erased the archives.

1- Every one of the links ever made to IHT stories now points back to the generic NY Times global front page.

2- Even when I go to the NY Times global page, I cannot find my articles. In other words, my entire journalistic career at the IHT – from war zones to SARS wards – has been erased.

On a personal level I am horrified that I can no longer see all my stories. The IHT logo on this blog used to link to a search of the IHT website for my articles. On a professional level, I am appaled that the NY Times would kill all the links back to the IHT website. Imagine the power of combining two sites with a Google rank of 9 instead of killing one.

Also, imagine all the frustrated potential readers who click on a link to a specific story only to find themselves landing on the generic NY Times global front page.

The only way readers can find the IHT stories is by going to places where they were copied and reposted or Google cache. Is that a good for readers (or shareholders)?

In conclusion, Mr. Sulzberger, please do what you can to resurrect my articles onto the Internet.

Failing that, could I please drop by sometime to download a digital copy of my articles for my own reference?

In advance, thank you for your help on this.

Sincerely,

Thomas Crampton

UPDATE: Thank you to those who took the time to search for my articles.

While you may have found 3,510 of my articles that were also published by the NY Times, my articles in the IHT are still not there. You will note that most of the articles by me available on the NYT site are during 2004 or after, which is when the two papers became closer.

Here are two links to test:

First story: http://www.iht.com/articles/2002/05/07/t1_24.php
Second Story: http://www.iht.com/articles/2002/05/07/a4_12.php

These were a scoop I wrote about a Malaysian official who was acting as UN representative for political reconciliation at the same time as doing business with the ruling generals. (IE: Somewhat of a conflict of interest.) I would think it better if such stories were still available to people clicking through from sites like Asia Sentinel, where I found these links.

Here is what the NYT says when you click on the links:

Here is what happens when you search for my name and the Malaysian official’s name:

UPDATE2: Some choice stories of other publishers doing the same thing.

UPDATE3: Wikipedia is now grappling with the problem of all the dead links to IHT stories. In a separate posting, Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia founder, explains in a video interview with me the issues at hand.

UPDATE4: Now have an estimate of just how much the bad links are costing NYT shareholders. According to calculations by Rick Burnes of the Global Tech Products blog:

From a business perspective, the NYT is throwing away money — at least $100,000 every month the links are broken. According to Compete.com, IHT.com was getting over 1.5 million visitors/month before it shut down. If a third of those visitors were from search and direct old links, 500,000 visitors a month are hitting the dead end in the image above, instead of the page they were looking for. To buy that traffic from Google at $.20/click, you’d have to pay $100,000 a month. Add that $100,000 to the value of the SEO authority IHT.com accrues from its 3.9 million inbound links, and you have a sense of the money The Times is leaving on the table.

UPDATE 5: I have now closed off comments to this posting because the NY Times responded. Have a look at the follow-up posting and feel free to leave a comment there.

This was an angle that had not occurred to me until now.

The issue: Wikipedia – one of the highest traffic websites on the Internet – makes reference to a large number of IHT stories, but those links are now all dead. They need to delete them all and find new references or use another solution.

Wikipedia will quite possibly now look for references in rival publications, such as the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.

In fact, this presents a great opportunity for someone in the WSJ or Washington Post to build up the authority of their publication on Wikipedia: Find and replace the dead links to IHT articles with links to their own publication. (Would that be ethical within the Wikipedia world? On the one hand it is clearly self-interested, on the other hand you are fixing dead links.)

Why, oh, why did the NY Times delete all the links to the IHT stories instead of redirecting them to the same stories within the NY Times website?

Below is a snapshot of the discussions you can follow at the Wikipedia Village Pump page.

One interesting suggestion in the conversation:

The best solution for this is to also cite the source as if it were from the hard copy version — article title, page, date of the newspaper. The URL is just frosting on the cake. That way, if a bonehead webmaster (or more likely his pointy-haired boss) decides to erase the online archive, then the reader at least has a chance of finding the article in a physical archive of the newspaper. (Same goes for other periodicals.) — llywrch

How can we count the links to the IHT in Wikipedia?

David W. Dunlap of the NY Times wrote a great story in 2004 that prompted an uproar among former Herald journalists.

The NY Times and Herald were rivals, until a printer’s strike killed the Herald in the 1960s. One quote from Dunlap’s article:

When Mr. Bigart joined The Times in 1955, one of his new colleagues, Arthur Gelb, asked him, “Homer, how can we make The Times more like The Tribune?”

“Turn off the air-conditioning,” Mr. Bigart answered.

Appropriately, the dispute over Dunlap’s article involved alcohol, an impossibly tight deadline and great writing: 

Did Herald reporter Sanche de Gramont really rush straight from a heavy session at Bleeck’s bar to write his Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of opera star Leonard Warren death while performing on stage at the  Metropolitan Opera House?

Dunlap’s follow up story included many rival accounts of that evening and is even better than his excellent first story.

A side note on something few people seem to know: Manhattan’s Times Square is named after The New York Times and Herald Square is named after the NY Herald.

This image comes from Season 1, Episode 4, New Amsterdam, 33.38.