We launched RSS feeds at InfoWorld in April 2002 after I realized it was kind of silly to force NewsIsFree to screen scrape us to get our headlines (you can get them straight from us here).
Just like I launched the initial, now defunct, CNN newsfeed in 1999 . . . . it made no sense to let other news organizations repurpose our product.
<update> But it goes deeper than that. Considering how news itself is largely a commodity (so many wire services and producers), the value a news outlet adds is filtering and editing, in other words, presentation. RSS is just another mode of presentation, albeit a skeletal one. But it has matured beyond the RSS .91 days and will mature even further: why any organization that has built it’s reputation on being first with the best would avoid a new low-risk/low-cost distribution channel is hard for me to understand.