Jeff Jarvis and the BuzzMachine started a very interesting discussion about the many failings of the Newspapers, seen here: http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/04/07/the-speech-the-naa-should-hear/
It is a good discussion but fails to address the question of how a journalist can make a living? Below is my post to the discussion.
Paul says:
April 9, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I’ve read all the replies and the question persists:
“How do writers get paid and get the resources to find, write and report good news?”
Within the google aggregate, the links are not organized by the publishing newspapers, they are organized by the individual article, written by an individual journalist. The google aggregate becomes in effect a newspaper itself. It organizes the content in a comprehensible fashion and matches that with advertising in order to sustain itself.
Perhaps not prevalent at the moment, but if I had a blog and I posted a unique story about a pressing national issue, I have just as much chance getting a top google listing as the Baltimore Sun.
The fundamental question is, should I get paid for that and how?
According to the link economy, I cannot charge for my content, but I am responsible for creating a monetization plan that will sustain my efforts. How? My little blog advertisements can’t do it alone or cannot do it in a stable manner, by this I mean, what I write today is hot but tomorrow maybe not. What I write is still important but just doesn’t hit a chord with the hundreds of thousands of people necessary to garner 1% advertising clicks necessary to pay the bills.
A good example of this is that until today I’ve never even heard of Jeff Jarvis but this post is relevant and interesting to me today. I will probably never return to this blog again, link or no link, it’s just the law of probability versus the number of content sites out there. Plus I’m thinking that Mr. Jarvis makes a whole lot more from CNN appearances or speaking engagements than he does strickly from this blog in other words the actual journalism here is subsidized in a similar manner as in newspaper business models.
At the issue’s core: If I don’t get paid, I can not continue to do it. Newspapers today have placed themselves in an intermediary position. Writers work for newspaper because they offer paychecks and resources with which to get the job done. As newspapers die, journalists will try to make a go of it on their own but can an individual come up with the money needed to go undercover for a story? Probably not as effectively if just relying on advertising.
