Some "Blogonomics," CJR

From Columbia Journalism Review: "The dispute between screen and television writers and media conglomerates has its roots, after all, in the Web. The sweeping changes it has impelled in the media over the past decade or so have made film and TV writers feel less in control of the products of their labor.

• The current strike is the culmination of that: the writers are fighting for additional compensation when a product they’ve created for film or TV is distributed in some form over the Internet.

Their current compensation? Nothing.

• Bloggers often earn that same salary. There are exceptions, of course, those fortunate few who have become quasi-celebrities in their own right and found themselves, and their sites, snatched up by major media companies....

But most bloggers aren’t ...high-profile...or don’t come from a journalistic background.

• They’re not being hired, nor are they freelancing in the traditional sense. They’re political activists or college students or professors or celebrities, or
• simply opinionated and informed citizens. In many cases, they have day jobs (or are retired) and blog for “fun” or out of devotion to a cause. They don’t expect to be paid well, if at all—or they don’t know that they should expect it.

These types of bloggers comprise a significant part of the core content base of economically significant sites like Daily Kos, The Huffington Post, and ScienceBlogs (where I maintain a regular blog). And current standards for their compensation are hardly uniform.

• The Huffington Post, for instance, recently came under fire when cofounder Ken Lerer told USA Today that the site’s “financial model” did not involve ever paying bloggers.

• There’s a similar lack of compensation for writing “diaries” at Daily Kos.

ScienceBlogs, by contrast, pays bloggers invited to join the network based on their traffic"....

• From Columbia Journalism Review article by Chris Mooney, "Blogonomics," Jan.-Feb. 2008

********************** ***What bothers me is the perception that writers, especially so-called beat writers, must have "access" to certain individuals. I don't believe this is necessary, in fact it changes everything about the information transmitted. This aspect of the job should be reduced. Important issues are ignored in favor of meaningless quotes and sensationalism. (sm)

Tweet Stumbleupon StumbleUpon