MediaFlect

Here’s some more thinking on journalism and money. Sometimes, when I was working as a reporter people would ask me why they should give me information or a quote or a picture of them for free . In Japan, in fact, “expert” sources such as a professor talking about his area of expertise, did expect to be paid and often were, though not by American publications I worked for

Though I would use the usual arguments to get someone to talk without paying — publicity for your business or scholarly exploits, getting your word/story/point of view out, etc. — sometimes I thought to myself “good point”. After all, I was working for profit-making ventures, or a wire service that sold its wares to for-profit companies. Why should someone be expected to help that effort, essentially giving away some intellectual capital, so someone else could make money off it?

Now, of course, I know that it’s not one-to-one like that, and that someone who’s smart will do well in how they give their information away. But, really, aren’t journalists and their companies sometimes using someone for the purpose of putting together an interesting piece they can sell and place ads around? Should the crying mother get a share of whatever money the picture of her makes? I’m not completely comfortable asking these questions, and a lot of people will respond reflexively that I daren’t do so — but discomfort often indicates a sensitive spot that deserves to be examined.

In this Technology Review piece on ” The Business of Blogging” Webmeisteringing entreprepreneur Jason Calacanis says he doesn’t pay his bloggers (could we call them writers or journalists?) by the amount of traffic they attract to their specific blogs within his network.

His company, Weblogs Inc., the piece says, “rejects the idea of tying compensation for a specific blog to its ad performance; the company wants its content to be as genuine as possible. ‘If our bloggers are just chasing traffic by writing about Lindsay Lohan, readers won’t tolerate it,’ ” Calacanis says.

That’s noble, because it means content is king. It also means his people won’t have the incentive to game their blog to get more search engine traffic illegitimately. Calacanis says most of his bloggers just wanted a paycheck. They get an average of $500 -$600/month, with some making as much as $3,000, the story says. Their pay depends on how much work they do.

But what is the right model for paying journlalists? Someone I met at the Kagan VOD Summit told me he has a friend who’s a TV weatherman in New York but gets no respect compared to the hard news journalists, even though it’s commonly acknowledged that the local news audience tunes in for the weather. Who deserves what money? The Web makes it more possible than ever to track traffic. But does each individual story have to stand on its own, from a monetary standpoint?

If a certain sandwich isn’t selling, a restaurant chain can discontinue it. But this is a case when the news, or content, business is different.

Northwestern’s Kellogg business school of media management, at the behest of the Online Publishers Association, today released the details of a study on what makes users do what they do on the Internet — why they use it, why they like or dislike what they like or dislike. It’s fairly obvious in many cases — this is really social science, after all — but at the same time, it’s great fodder for editorial and publishing types to get their salespeople on board with the idea that content has real value and needs to have primacy when positioning an ad sale. “Entertains and Absorbs Me” was the number one reason people go to Web media, the study says. Interesting tidbit: Users of national news Web sites rated their Web experience under this category lower than other groups (see page 8 of 271 in the PDF document).

Philly.com, the Philadelphia Enquirer’s Web site sent me a breathless email today making what they said was a great offer: “When you place your next online classified ad with us before July 15, 2005 we’ll give you a Free Bold Title. This draws attention to your ad so you can sell your stuff quicker!”

Gee, let’s see: Philly.com, free bold title. Philadelphia Craigslist, free ad altogether. (It is free to advetise in Philly.com’s merchandise area, the email says.) Will that free bold title make you bite?

CBS MarketWatch a couple of days ago wrote: “Concerns are mounting that DVD sales and rentals will take on even more prominence — and that the timelag between the theatrical debut and the home video release will close.”

I guess that makes Hollywood tremble because it’s less “box office.” But if they can figure out a way to release movies in a secure way in High Definition TV to homes, and the fee is right, why not do it? Just that scenario was suggested today at the Kagan VOD summit, which I covered for PaidContent. In fact the story says that entrepreneur Mark Cuban “has contracted with Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh to make six films that will be released on home video the same day.”

I can’t help but wonder if the net effect of today’s Brand X Supreme Court ruling – which says Cable TV companies don’t have to allow competing ISPs over their lines – will over time mean that companies that DO allow competing ISPs, will get more business. In other words, will the Verizons of the world selling DSL end up beating cable because people will go for the service that gives them more choice.

Cable is used to a world of control. The Internet is creating a world of choice.

Tomorrow, I’ll be covering the Kagan Video on Demand summit for PaidContent.org, so I may not get to post here. Lots of questions, lots of action: whither mobile (is there really a market); do advertisers yet get that TV ads don’t really work online or on handhelds; how will the inevitable video podcasting revolution shake things up, does v-Logging have an effect yet…. etc, etc.

Now a journalist fired for fabricating has written a book about his ordeal when someone else — a murderer — scammed him by using his name soon after he was fired for the fabrication.
Michael Finkel tells On the Media he thought at the time he was serving a higher truth, but what this gets me to thinking is: With all the Jack Kelly, Michael Finkel, Steven Glass, Jason Blair, Janet Cooke and other fabricating journalists, how many are there that have gotten away with it? How many of us have knowingly made up a source, or put something in we didn’t know to be provably accurate?

I never did, to my knowledge, make anything up, but there were times when I felt an edit squeezed a story into a preconceived notion, a quote was used to fit that notion even as the nuance of the situation might have been different or more muddy. I also know that, when translating from other languages — something I’ve done from time to time as a journalist (one small example here) — there can be an array of accurate word choices. You’re not making anything up. You’re capturing the truth of a situation. But you also have some latitude.

New York City is a two paid-tabloid town. (Three if you count Long Island-based Newsday, which has a strong New York-focussed Web site and plans a comeback to the city in print, an editor there tells me.)

The two paid tabs, the New York Post and the Daily News, have been in a dogfight forever, for readers, for revenue, for scoops, for the upper hand. They have very different personas. Post: Brash, conservative, gossip, part of the Murdoch empire. DailyNews: strong investigative journalism, ally to middle- and lower-middle class New Yorkers, covering the city as no one else does.

But to the casual observer — which is most of the population — it can be very hard to make the distinction. I saw Friday’s papers on a makeshift newstand, with the tops cut off, and I realized that by look, feel, maybe even language and style, the average person would not have been able to tell which was which. Try it yourself: Look at the two covers, Post and DailyNews, and cover the tops of the images. Flipping between the two, would you know which is which if you were just walking by?

I bother with this to make a larger point: We, in this business (as in many) often get in a mindset of thinking of ourselves, our products, as we see them without thinking of the casual observer. If the Post and News are trying to look like each other, that’s fine. But is it on purpose? What about your site, or media product? Is it really seen the way you think it is? Or are you making assumptions that might not be founded?

So there’s a move by the French government to prop up newspapers, it seems, rather than let them go their natural way. Gotta love government intervention — if you’re scared of change or losing your job. Learned about this today at the IFRA-sponsored tour for French journalistic managers (newspaper, wire service, magazine) from editorial and tech sides. Told ‘em what I see as the way to increase acceptance in their main organizations for the organization and make it a win-win: In a nutshell, it’s make sure Internet has a seat at the table, every table, and create both editorial and revenue opportunities.

Came back a couple hours later to watch Jeff Jarvis lay it on pretty thick in on the wonders of blogging — audience participation is good and can be harnessed editorially and commercially, the current business model is broken and blogs may be the answer, sharing and openness is in, informational/organization walls and obliqueness are out. Made some provocative comments about how he left AdvanceNet because he preferred to go out on his own than fight the Newhouse family’s newspapers to change internally.

Was amazed that none of about 15 French journalistic managers had heard of Technorati, or knew how easy it was to do a blog (I set one up and blogged the session for a minute just to show how easy it was, and got a round of applause (I think that’s why they clapped when I stood up to leave )), and I’m not sure they understood “RSS” — many were good enough at English that I don’t think it was a language problem.

But Jeff also repeated a lot of things that seem to be part of the “zeitgeist” now, and unlike common sense, common wisdom is quite common — and ends up being conventional, which is where I see “Danger Danger, Warning Warning” (Lost in Space reference). More to come …