Just a few moments ago I finished reading a [url=http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53355,00.html]Wired news article[/url] covering the public outcry surrounding [url=http://www.npr.org/about/linking_form.html]NPR’s linking policy[/url].
In the story, they feature excerpts from an interview with Jeffrey Dvorkin, NPR’s ombudsman, who said that he’d received between 20 and 30 e-mail messages asking about the policy and that he’d responded to all of them.
[b]This is NOT TRUE! I sent him an email on Wednesday (copy of the body in a post below) to which I have yet to receive any reply.[/b]
In response, I’ve sent Wired.com an email correcting the “facts” as presented by Mr. Dvorkin in the story. I’ve also sent Mr. Dvorkin another email calling him out for claiming to have responded to all emails, when in fact he had not.
Interestingly, NPR [b]has[/b] updated (as of June 21, 2002) their [url=http://www.npr.org/about/privacypolicy.html]Legal and Privacy Policy[/url] page with the following text:
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[i]NPR Online’s Linking Policy
To those of you who wrote to us about our linking permission policy, thanks for your many comments. Many of you offered thoughtful insights that have prompted us to reevaluate this policy.
The policy was originally intended to maintain NPR?s commitment to independent, noncommercial journalism. We have encountered instances where companies and individuals constructed entire commercial Web “radio” sites based on links to NPR and similar audio. We have also encountered Web sites of issue advocacy groups that have positioned the audio link to an NPR story such that one cannot tell that NPR is not supporting their cause. This is not acceptable to NPR as an organization dedicated to the highest journalistic ethics, both in fact and appearance.
However, NPR also recognizes that the majority of the linking on the Web is not infringement. We are working on a solution that we believe will better match the expectations of the Web community with the interests of NPR. We will post revisions soon at www.npr.org.[/i]
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Further reports to follow!