The Great Unpaid

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They may be washed, but they's unpaid.

Literally 100s of thousands of bloggers/ content providers for popular internet sites are unpaid.

David Carr carped on this in the NYT. One Good Point:

“The technology of a lot of these sites is very seductive, and it lulls you into contributing,” said Anthony De Rosa, a product manager at Reuters. “We are being played for suckers to feed the beast, to create content that ends up creating value for others.”


The rise of"citizen journalists" is one major new factor in the democratization of information--they provide content for thousands of popular sites. I has mah favorites out thar, an reckon y'all do to--of these citizen commentators. I favors this.
The distinction I want to be sure to make is that I favor citizen commentary on personal blogsites, or aggregate sites where readers choose who to read, even when the bloggers ain't paid. What I thinks is dangerous is unpaid writers/ reporters on big commercial websites who write "news reports" that in fact ain't nuthin' but opinion wif' unvetted, unsubstantiated, "sources." When a "news" site offers news reports/ feature/ analysis by unpaid people, I gits a wee antsy.




The lack of real pay for real work, this is the question. Does it lessen professionalism? Of course it do. It short-circuits some resources--how many "citizen journalists" have a Lexis Nexis subscription? Conduct real interviews? How many do even basic research before uploading glop to a website desperate fer new daily content. What is the value of much of what is offered on the net? Most simply turn their topics into a opinion, but not researched reports. *

The Great Unpaid be them professional journalists ( not columnists wif' by-lines) who've been forced to transition to the "new media" cause, iffin' ya ain't noticed, print media is goin' the way of smoke signals.




These is folks who fill the vast webpages that must get filled/ updated daily. Those pages carry advertisements that make the web page owners $$$. But you an' me doan click onto a site to see the adds--we's lookin' fer content. Content worth readin'--an most good content is from people who know what an' how to write. Do ya' think they should be paid? These is folks who wuz paid to do print articles/ op-eds. But as they transitioned, they discovered two thangs:

1.Web readers ain't gonna read mor'n 750-900 word articles ( print articles are typically 2500-5000 words). It is tough bidness to make a cogent argument on a complex matter in 750 words. The sound-byte mentality applies to digital readin'.

2. Web site managers do not want to pay for content. Yep, the webeditors want free content. Even from professional scribblers.

Exhibit A be's the socialist culture rag, Huffington Post--it jes' sold itself fer
315 million to AOL. But ....but the bloggers, an' many "writers," those folks that provide content for HuffPo? They git zip. Nada. Zero.




The dirty details is here, but it's enough to know that ole "let them eat cake" archcrone Ariana Huffington sniffed, "They (bloggers) get exposure."

Try buyin'a tank of gas wif' "exposure."

Whas' exposure supposed to do fer the writer who ain't paid? Why, it might--key word, "might" --lead to better thangs. It might lead to another managing editor "picking up" the writer's stuff--oh, wait, that ain't so nifty, since the new web ed ain't gonna pay either. Then what good is "exposure," that airy phrase that means "We are offering yore work to a million readers, ain't that somethin'? "

No, it ain't somethin', it's nuthin. It's the HuffPo fattening up the fat hawg they's gonna sell after feedin' it fer free. Rarely, the odd blogger/ webzine writer might be offered a speakin' engagement, an that can pay decently--but of the thousands of articles posted each week, how many of those authors does ya' reckon will be asked somewhar' to speak for a fee?

Now the odd thang is that when asked, most Huff Po bloggers lamented their status, but admitted they will keep scribblin', pay or no pay. Is they all trust fund babies? Or do they do it fer the ego trip of seein' their name on a banner? No pay, only an audience (exposure). What is their motivation? Do we trust their stuff ? Says Carr of Huff Po's serfs: "..the people who wrote for The Huffington Post were somewhat politically motivated to contribute to the civic common in what they felt were progressive and additive ways." Ya' think???

( “I really don’t care that Arianna made all that money,” said Ms. Fowler [ who broke the story on Obama sayin' Americans cling to their guns and bibles] “More power to her. The original premise was not that we would get paid, so I didn’t expect to. But after the election and the fact that they nominated my work for a Pulitzer, I thought that might change. I talked to Arianna about getting paid for my work, and she strung me along for two years and then it never happened.” ) Y'all git it? The content is now provided by ideologues who never expected to be paid.

Redhead Ranting has no sympathy fer the HuffPo crybabies, "...these writers who give away their talent, time and skill have hurt all of us who write for a living, however the Huffington Post never held a gun to these freelance writers heads." Exactly.

Does ya' git what ya' pay fer or....an this is important now--do we now trust the average news site wif' unpaid contributors more than we trust professional journalists?


Well now. Huh. No wonder the worst major for graduatin' collich seniors is journalism. Thar' ain't a lower degree on the totem pole. A journalism degree is "worthless" accordin' to The Daily Beast. The odd thang? The digital consumption of news/ features is akshully increasin'. More an' more people click into the net fer news an commentary. (Buh- bye, TV news) But whose ideas/ views are they findin'? Do readers know how to vet what they read?

"Transitional times in any industry are problematic but the transition going on in journalism is frightening. While the variety of platforms for news writing, news photography and news videography increases, the value of an education in journalism decreases.This means that as never before when it comes to reading the news, caveat emptor – let the buyer beware!"

Of course, many top quality sites DO pay, but not the same scale as print.

Why do it matter? I'se askin' that of mahself--do it matter? Will we see the demise of true analysis? The death of decent research? Does the Great Unpaid model of web-writing insure that only a certain sort will be writin' what we read? That sort is the ideologue who's passion is for his point of view. She doan follow rules of ethics. He doan write fer a living, he lives to bring about his vision of how thangs should be. Should the major media of our era be filled wif' idiotlogues?

In the end, what is really revolutionary is that it ain't about news or truth,it is about traffic to the site so adds can be sold. If ya can generate traffic wif'out payin' to generate it, why would ya' pay? If folks will visit hokey garbage, gossip an' grumble sites but not real news or analysis, then the marketplace has spoken: News and analysis has no value to the public.


What ever yore thoughts, I agree wif' this:

Journalists/ commentators brought this on theyselves fer prostituting their profession wif' partisan deceptions rather than honest journalism.


*photo found here

*Lots of blogger/ writers make $$ writing for the net. The techie/ how-to/ health/ finance sites pay "experts" to write their articles. Corporate bloggers are paid. I'se speakin' about the news analysis/ commentary sites that should inform our citizens, but offer the work of unpaid writers whose "work" is suspect.