{"id":911,"date":"2014-10-30T14:29:39","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T21:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/?p=911"},"modified":"2014-10-30T14:29:39","modified_gmt":"2014-10-30T21:29:39","slug":"bucks-for-clicks-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2014\/10\/30\/bucks-for-clicks-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"“Bucks for Clicks” journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like Virginia Postrel<\/a>\u2018s take on the recent controversy over at Forbes.com. A popular author, Bill Frezza<\/a>, published a controversial column on that website \u2013 advising university fraternities to beware of female students who show up at their parties drunk \u2013 and was fired. Comments Postrel<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What has drawn little comment is the business model that produced a journalistic fiasco. Forbes.com (not to be confused with the print magazine) is a publication that acts like a platform. It hires columnists, gives them a general turf, tells them to write and post pieces, and pays them by how much traffic they attract. Unlike a traditional publication, it doesn\u2019t spend money on having editors review the topics or articles beforehand.<\/p>\n

In the traditional model, Frezza\u2019s article either would have had the backing of the publication\u2013which would have stood up for it\u2013or it would have never seen the light of day. If the argument seemed beyond the pale, an editor would have said, \u201cNo thanks. What else do you have?\u201d There would have been no public blowup and no firing. One way or another Forbes.com would have taken responsibility. (As anyone who reads Forbes.com knows, its lack of editorial oversight extends to basics of proofreading.) Forbes.com\u2019s business model has been successful in a tough environment, but it presents editorial perils.<\/p>\n

Under the new model, columnists have to guess what readers will find interesting and they also have to guess what editors will find a firing offense. They are expected\u00a0to internalize vaguely defined standards and self-censor accordingly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Other, very bad problems with this model: (1) Authors are financially punished for writing stories that take a long time to report or that are important-but-boring; (2) livid, invidious opinion is likely to generate more \u201cclicks\u201d than researched journalism; (3) writers must now aim to please rather than\u00a0to inform their readers.<\/p>\n

Back in the day, Sports sections, for example, subsidized important-but-boring stories about school-board meetings and treaty negotiations among Asian nations. No more, alas.<\/p>\n

Reposted from basil.CA<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like Virginia Postrel\u2018s take on the recent controversy over at Forbes.com. A popular author, Bill Frezza, published a controversial column on that website \u2013 advising university fraternities to beware of female students who show up at their parties drunk … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,108],"class_list":["post-911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roberts-posts","tag-audience","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}