A New Business Model for Journalism

Portfolio Magazine is just one of a slew of magazines and newspapers to fold in the last few months. The publications that are still holding on are slashing jobs and cutting pay, and online publications aren't faring much better in this recession. Some media companies have tried to charge consumers for information that they are already accessing for free, only to find that it costs them both audience and advertising revenue. The model where print publications act as agents that connect advertisers and content is officially obsolete. The only economically viable option for the future of journalism lies in the direct corporate sponsorship of content.

Without media companies, there are only content providers and advertisers, and both parties currently need each other. Content cannot exist if no one is paying for it, and advertisers need a better system than dwindling print ads, which are difficult to track anyway, or banner ads, which yield a less than 1 percent click-through rate. If companies hire content providers to write directly for their sites, content will continue to exist, writers will get paid, and corporations will have a proliferation of visitors.

At present, Starbucks.com is a static corporate website. If Starbucks.com were to buy content from online literary magazines that are currently begging for donations, like Narrative, Guernica and Anderbo, Starbucks.com would become a virtual literary coffee house, thereby both enhancing its brand identity and driving visitors to the site.

If Exxon.com, another static corporate website, were to buy the content from Car and Driver and Motor Trend, not only would those writers have jobs again, but they would be getting paid more than they ever did.

Mattress.com could hire the staff of the now defunct Domino. Apple could take over the entire editorial department of The New York Times. The content would be free, but what was once the front page of the Times would now be the front page of iTunes. Writers, bloggers, podcasters and videographers would get paid again, and they would get paid in advertising dollars instead of editorial dollars, because it would be their content that was driving traffic to these corporate sites.

There is an obvious conflict of interest, which is that, if corporations are paying the writers' salaries, those corporations can dictate the content. But as Ted Glasser suggested with his National Endowment for Journalism, political and corporate reporting would be publicly funded. And sites with honest product reviews, like TripAdvisor.com and Amazon.com, have proven that the straighter a company plays it, the more it gains the respect of its audience. Remember too, that people have an authenticity filter now, as was evident by the anger over Bush-appointed Kenneth Tomlinson's campaign against the "liberal bias" at PBS. Finally, even if there is an inevitable conflict of interest, there always has been. Editorial boards have always had to account for their advertisers' interests. And a media owner like Rupert Murdock has always had the power to influence his publications' content based on his own personal financial portfolio.

Perhaps it seems vulgar to write for a brand instead of a publication, but content providers need to get paid. The Huffington Post's bloggers, none of whom are currently getting paid, will post on its advertiser, H&R Block.com's, site for actual money. And if a company like H&R Block starts to feature thoughtful and noteworthy content, there may very well be cache in being its editor-in-chief.

As writers, editors and publishers try to make sense of the new media landscape, they should ask themselves: Who has the money and what do they need? The people who have the money are the people who have always had the money: Large corporations. What they need is what they have always needed: Advertising.

It's time to lose the middle man.

Comments

[RRofihe]

It's an idea, and we need ideas -- I was born in 1950 and buy & read 3 to 6 paper newspapers every day, but I know they're doomed. I am also the Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of one of the online journals mentioned in the article, Anderbo.com -- all-volunteer staff, approaching a million hits from readers a year -- outside of our annual (break-even) poetry contest, no money EVER comes in, and Ms. Haimoff's idea is better than any I've had....

[JackHudson]

"The people who have the money are the people who have always had the money: Large corporations."

Actually, before the large corporations have it, the money is in the pocket of individual consumers. So maybe the question is, how can good writers be harnessed into a marketable form that doesn't require corporate support.

Subscription? Pay-per-read? Commissioned journalism?

See, for example, http://www.spot.us/

Meanwhile, here's a relevant Orwell quote, borrowed from Anna Haynes in a parallel discussion on Wired.com:

"Real journalism consists of what someone doesn't want published, all the rest is public relations."

[VictoriaP]

I don't think that this idea will work, as it would not be long before corporations would make side deals with writers to manipulate the content, at some level.

[escribacat]

I can't imagine a corporation paying anyone to write anything unless the content directly promotes the corporation. Why would they? From the reader's perspective, the content would always be suspect.

The starbucks/literary mag idea seems like a nice one, but I'm not sure Starbucks would see it that way. I'm sure they'd be deluged with millions of stories on Day 1 though.

I don't think journalism is dead. I do think that most readers aren't very discriminating but there are still a lot of readers who are, and who demand well-researched, well-written, probing articles. These will be published online on the magazine or newpaper's website, paid for by advertisers. I think the print newspapers and magazines that are going under were not nimble enough to migrate online and survive without subscriptions. If proper journalism does die out, and we rely on citizen commenters who may or may not know what they are talking about (yeah, like this one), we are in very big trouble.

[ScreenName05]

So we should want to pay writers to write because? They write no matter what we do, so why should we pay them?

[TinaGirlla]

I think this is a bad idea, too.

There are a ton of really good, trained journalists doing really good work. Before the information age, whether we got to see that work might depend on whether it would make advertisers angry, stories were killed b/c of the interests of a minority of people with political and economic power. Now, folk are no longer willing to settle for that.

Journalism is dead, at least in the sense it existed in the last century. The AP is stupid enough to keep fighting Google, for example, instead of finding workable, flexible ways to move into this century & face the fact that times have changed.

It's kind of like radio people not getting what the advent of television meant for their industry, and persisting with old models. Children born today will probably never even hold a newspaper.

[unitron]

I'm not sure that I understand how the "xyz corporation" is better off putting "myfavoriteauthor" somewhere on www.xyzcorporation.comm" than it is just buying some ad space next to "myfavoriteauthor"'s current column on the web site where it usually appears.

Unless they're planning to make me drill down through a page or twelve which sing the company's praises in order to get to the content, which means that I, and many like me, will probably soon develop a new "favoriteauthor" and the previous one will find the corporate gig to be the most expensive job they ever had.

[unitron]

As far as I know that's neither a real company nor a real link to a real web page, and it doesn't show up "linkified" in 'preview', or I would have obfusticated it better.

[Paul]

One problem is that sites like this one can simply link to any content currently on the web.

So why would I care about the sponsor's products if I am reading the content on a third-party site?

[unitron]

'Link to' and 'reproduce in its entirety' are not the same thing.

Something the Associated Press seems to have some difficulty understanding of late.

[calebgalaraga]

Agree! This is the way for journalists to make money online. It's key for us to be able to sustain our interests in writing and a strategic approach in utilizing our skills for immediate monetary benefit. Writing for corporations in a journalist's perspective, as a valuable add-on the advertising messages they incorporate in their marketing plan, will prove to be an image enhancing option for any corporate marketing apartment.

Kudos to you for understanding that this would be the way for aspiring and established writers (which includes all of us) to make a decent living of our craft!

[loncowber]

"Content cannot exist if no one is paying for it" ???!!! Have you taken a look around lately?

[kathy001]

Sorry, there is just no way that this idea will not be perverted from the outset. It's like having the fox pay journalists to write articles about how the chickens disappeared.

Before the Internet came along, I paid monthly subscriptions for newspapers and magazines and never even thought to complain. When I realized that i could get better information from the Internet, I discontinued those other news sources - not because the Internet was free but because the information was better. If I need to start paying monthly subscriptions for services on the Internet I will do so without complaint - as long as it is of the same quality. But if corporations are the ones paying writers to produce content, I'll never be able to trust another thing I read.

[Tyler-Durden]

why not just have the corporations hire the writers? then the content can be that much easier to manipulate. your idea is not a good one.

[billyshakes]

I'm in it, too, so I get that there's a major problem here, but the solution in this article sounds like a B.A.D. idea. I'd seriously rather be in a world where I have to work really hard to find content than one in which virtually every story I read is suspect because the writer's direct employer is the advertiser. Even in seemingly benign arenas; say Shell Oil funds Car and Driver -- will there ever again be any reasonable objectivity when the mag discusses fuel? Hardly.

[classicalgeek]

Time for a paradigm shift. This isn't it. This will turn everything into an advertisement and consumers will flee from it. If you think the blogosphere and citizen journalism is threatening traditional media now, just wait until this model is put into practice. Newspaper readership will drop from the tens of thousands to the dozens.

[mwhnyc]

Great idea, having HuffPo writers post on H&R Block's own site. The first posts could be about the history of class actions and predatory lending claims involving H&R. H&R would certainly be delighted to sponsor vigorous debate on such issues.....

from http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/04/hr_block_ral_settle.html:


H&R Block Settles Tax Refund Loan Suit
Still Faces Major Challenge by California

April 21, 2006

--
News
• Massachusetts Blocks H&R Block, Option One Foreclosures
• New York Stops H&R Block's Deceptive Sweepstakes Ads
• California Sues H&R Block
• H&R Block Threatened Employees, Spitzer Charges
• NY Accuses H&R Block of IRA Marketing Fraud
• H&R Block Goofs on Its Own Taxes
• H&R Block Will Settle More Payday Loan Suits
• Judge Upholds Racketeering Complaints Against H&R Block

---

Tax preparation giant H&R Block has proposed a $39 million settlement to a consumer class action lawsuit challenging the fees and interest rates on it charged for "refund anticipation loans."
..

The class action, filed on behalf of as many as 1.7 million H&R Block customers, contended that Block charged interest rates of more than 100 percent on refund loans and failed to properly inform customers of the finance charges they were paying.

...

H&R Block agreed in December to settle more than two dozen class-action lawsuits over the refund loans for $62.5 million. That settlement covered 8 million customers.

[CitizenFarmer]

The Blochs need that money to send to the homeland.