Well it's about time, AP!

"Too little, too late." "Better late than never." All the standard lines seem to apply. That's my reaction to the news that the AP will recognize blogs as legitimate news sources and credit blogs in their articles.

I should also clarify that I am not affected by this news. While I believe that blogs can be legitimate news sources, I do not take that position because my blog is such a news source. I don't break news on this blog, I merely comment on items that others have already reported on.

From the Social Times:
"AP Recognizes Bloggers as News Sources – Finally"
http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/09/ap-recognizes-bloggers-as-news-sources-finally/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+socialtimes+%28SocialTimes.com%29

And yet, after reading this story my opinion of the AP (and traditional news sources in general) has dropped even lower. They are implicitly admitting that they didn't give proper credit in the past. Now, when they do give credit, they believe it's okay to bury that credit further down in the story ("the attribution doesn’t always have to be at the start of a story or script; it can sometimes be two or three graphs down.").

They were also extremely slow to react to a new, legitimate source of news--basically they were slow to react to what is, in itself a news story! Sure, not every blog is a solid news source--but it can be easily argued that the same is true of traditional media!!!