The Associated Press tries courtside crowdsourcing Sotomayor coverage

By Ian Crouch

As news organizations roll out their coverage plans for Sonia Sotomayor’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings next week, some interesting innovation is coming from a player some critics have labeled stodgy: the Associated Press.

AP is promising readers insider access to the toughest ticket in Washington with the Twitter feed AP_Courtside. Some tweets will respond to reader questions and suggestions, while others will link to AP blog coverage on Yahoo News or to the news agency’s traditional content.

Perhaps most noteworthy, however, is AP’s promise that readers will “direct our coverage.” Though the Yahoo blog won’t be up until hearings begin next Monday, the Twitter feed is already soliciting reader feedback:

AP_Courtside: Beginning July 13, AP will go behind the scenes of the #Sotomayor Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Will you be our assignment editor?

AP_Courtside: Welcome to all our new followers. AP will take you inside the #Sotomayor confirmation hearings next week. What would you like us to cover?

AP_Courtside: We know you’re talking about next week’s #Sotomayor hearings. Why not talk with @AP_Courtside? What would you like us to report on?

The post announcing the blog on Yahoo makes an even harder sell by asking readers: “Want to pose your own questions to reporters and their sources?”

Is this a serious crowdsourcing enterprise from the news giant or simply an attempt to engage Twitter users with AP’s existing content? I asked AP’s Jim Kennedy, vice president and director of strategic planning, to explain this new initiative. Keep reading »

Dear New York Times: Please charge me more than $5 for your web site.

By Joshua Benton

We all know that The New York Times and other papers have been thinking hard about finding ways to charge readers for the news on their web sites, and there’s evidence that the decision-making process is moving along. Bloomberg has reported that a survey of print subscribers included this sentence:

The New York Times website, nytimes.com, is considering charging a monthly fee of $5.00 to access its content, including all its articles, blogs and multimedia.

It also asked about a $2.50-a-month “discounted fee” for print subscribers.

What bugs me most about that survey isn’t the idea that the Times wants to charge for its web site. As a news consumer, I love having the world’s newspapers free and a click away. But I know enough about the financial situations of most American newspapers — and the desperation they feel about their tumbling revenue numbers — that I’ve come to accept that we’re going to see a lot more experimentation with charging for access in the coming months. I wouldn’t be shocked if the majority of major American newspapers erected some sort of pay wall by year’s end.

No, what bugs me most is that the Times is thinking about charging so little.

The Times is the premier brand in American journalism, and it appeals to an elite audience. Charging anything for access to a newspaper web site is going to drive away a lot of readers. But if you’re going to charge and go through the massive dislocation of turning something free into something with a price tag — charging just $5 makes it seem like a damaged item in the discount bin. Here are three arguments for why the Times — if it’s going to charge — should charge more: Keep reading »