AP, Let's Do This Thing

Michelle Malkin's take is typical of bloggers who find the Associated Press' tiered excerpt pricing scheme targeted at bloggers to be farcical, but I think her response of charging the Associated Press for content they cite from bloggers doesn't go far enough.

I propose that in addition to charging AP for using blogger content, that AP be charged editorial fees when bloggers are forced to do the fact checking that in-house editors fail to do. For every blog entry proving than an Associated Press story is using false information or misleading, the Associated Press should pay that blogger the AP-supplied standard of $2.50/word. Just doing a quick check of my content from the present back until the beginning of May, the Associated Press owes me editorial services fees of $2,580 for 1,032 words correcting AP stories dating back to May 2. Some of that would be returned to AP (at $2.50/word) for the text examples I cited, but overall, it is a worthwhile enterprise. If I went back through all of my archives, I suspect that I could easily compile a fact-checking bill for the AP in the tens of thousands of dollars.

You'll not find me complaining about the Associated Press' new ideas of content fees. Their accountants, however, may feel otherwise.