NIEMAN LAB – 28/08/2018
Shan Wang
It is the year of our lord 2018, and the words “The Associated Press” and “journalism blockchain startup” have now appeared in the same sentence. Part of their new intersection, reported by Digiday, is pretty boring — the AP is licensing its stories to the 14 publications currently attached to the aforementioned startup Civil, just as it does with plenty of other outlets. The other part is a little more interesting: The two companies will coordinate on a blockchain-based effort to let Civil newsrooms track the flow of their content and enforce licensing rights. The AP is also getting some CVL tokens, the currency of the Civil ecosystem that also gives their holders a voice in governing the editorial activities within that ecosystem, though that public sale has now been pushed back to September 18. (Hope you’ve been studying for the quiz.)