The value of exclusivity
At this morning’s panel at the RTNDA conference, someone asked Sandy Malcolm of CNN whether they paid Jamal Albaughouti for his video from the Virginia shooting. She said that he just uploaded it. But then they contacted him and negotiated exclusivity and, it seems, payment. I criticized the notion of exclusivity and argued that they’d be better off putting the video out there with a CNN ID to take credit for having gotten it and to get the idea across that one can submit news video to them. I also argued that they should give their videos permalinks and allow them to be embedded (she said they’re working on such things). This video has set a record for CNN, Malcolm said, with more than 2 million views. It could have even more. And by the way, of course, the video is up on YouTube. The value of an exclusive today lasts about 30 seconds.
Tags: tvnews
April 17th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Oh my God…can you see a wave of camera-laden cellphones carrying a CNN logo…?
April 17th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Jeff,
I think you’ll find my post on the tragedy and how the Internet plays into possibly interesting:
http://www.suryasays.com/2007/04/17/tragedy-eternity/
April 17th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Don’t forget, the video is also available with full licensing rights from TheNewsRoom.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:51 am
[...] to CNN’s citizen journalism portal and has been viewed more than 2 million times. Jeff Jarvis criticises CNN’s apparent exclusivity deal with Albaughouti. Jarvis notes that the video is already available on [...]
April 18th, 2007 at 7:26 am
[...] BuzzMachine: The value of exclusivity Jeff Jarvis on CNN’s exclusive Virginia Tech mobile phone footage: “The value of an exclusive today lasts about 30 seconds.” (tags: cnn journalism exclusives mobile) [...]
April 18th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
[...] its the old hack in me but I still think exclusives are worth having. Jeff Jarvis does not. “The value of an exclusive today lasts about 30 seconds,” he says at [...]
April 18th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Hi Jeff,
I agree with you on the exclusivity deal (yeap, 30 secs) and I wonder by paying for the footage (even in name of “exclusivity”) may have corrupt future footages’ objectivity and validity. I hope we won’t see fake or modified footage but when there is payment, there is an incentive.
Now the station ID may be a workable middle ground soultion.
I have a hard time seeing tragedy being milked for any commercial gains but then this is the world we live in now.
Kempton
April 18th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
[...] User-generated content and traditional media work well together in some cases — MSNBC’s profiles of victims, many based on comments left on its own site — and seem totally screwed up in others — CNN buying the “exclusive” rights to Jamal Albaughouti’s campus cell phone footage (as reported by Jeff Jarvis). [...]
April 19th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Jeff, while you, Michael Rosenblum and many of my bosses were having fun in Vegas, I had the unique pleasure of meeting Jamal. I’m blogging from Virginia Tech.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:09 am
[...] best story. Ah, but I can hear some of you saying, wouldn’t this blow an exclusive? Well the exclusive has a fleeting value of about 30 seconds anymore anyway. And what’s exclusive about what Dave [...]
April 26th, 2007 at 11:18 am
[...] the best story. Ah, but I can hear some of you saying, wouldn’t this blow an exclusive? Well the exclusive has a fleeting value of about 30 seconds anymore anyway. And what’s exclusive about what Dave [...]
June 20th, 2007 at 6:48 am
[...] Here’s a blog post that Jeff Jarvis wrote some time back. He questions the value of exclusive ownership of content in these times of interconnectivity. [...]