There have been many discussions on the development of newspaper industry in recent months: Should the newspapers seek the business model by iTunes or the model of collecting a small amount of fees from their readers? Should they sue Google? Or they might as well use all these resorts? There are also people who talked about how the downfall of newspapers could threaten journalism. But very few people discussed about something new that might fundamentally change the operational method for the papers, namely the Open API by the New York Times that issued its press coverage. The paper started the discussion of the program last year and had it realized now. It is like what the developer Derek Gottfrid described in his Open Blog in the New York Times: Programmers and developers can now conveniently visit 2,800,000 pieces of news from 1981 until now (those of 87 years earlier will be chargeable)，and classify them into 28 categories according to different tabs, keywords and fields.

Experienced reporters might forget about this matter, because it concerns about programming and API (application program interface) terminology, and has virtually no connection with journalism and even media. As such, only computer junkies can understand its significance. But the enlightening words by Adrian Holovaty (developer of Django and founder of Everyblock) to us is that, broadly speaking, information content (including news) is only data. These data will become excellent “original news materials” after appropriate analysis and indexing, and can be compiled into tens or even hundreds of different kinds of news reports.

With information as substantial as that, managing news elements (characters, locations, events and details) will reveal the connection between rules and the depth  hidden in the news. That will not only assist in subliming the current reporting, but also bring along the totally unexpected new reporting. Currently only the research department in the newspaper office can have the appropriate tools to perform such tasks. By opening API to the public, the New York Times provides such a tool to all people, enabling them to seek different items and the train of thought which are unthought of even by reporters and researchers. Viewing from the perspective of the media and commercial companies, the New York Times changes newspaper to a platform providing a variety of services and functions. This does not only enhance the newspaper and its content and value, but also produce the possibility of different kinds of commercial sanctions, creating the partnership relationship —— needless to say, successful marketing can also be carried out.

This is also the core idea of the book《What will Google do》by Jeff Jarvis, whose key viewpoint is that, practically any business can benefit from the open data, and learn from the reconstruction and appraisal trial of the data by others. The New York Times uses its article database to build a supporting platform, which is similar to Google using atlas and satellite image database. The New York Times deserves respect from us, as they seek to open to the public and not to lock up the articles and charge fees according to the number of readings. Undoubtedly, in the long run, this method of use is far more beneficial than the tactics of charging fees according to the number of readings.

                          Writer：Mathew Ingram Translators：Logout，Akanekou from iFanr