Gawker: Will Nick Denton PAY For Media Respectability?
All of a sudden Nick Denton wants a seat at the media table, instead of scrounging for table scraps?
Did Gawker Media chief Nick Denton heed my recent blogging warning about the sustainability of a media model relying on the regurgitating of the oriiginal journalism of others?
During the Q & A of the IAB MIXX panel in September, “Users vs. Journalists vs. Advertisers: Does Web 2.0 Destroy or Enhance the Marketing-Media Ecosystem?” I asked Denton and his fellow panelists if mainstream media would eventually reject the link economy and therby unravel the not so virtuous, online copyright infringing Web conent ecosystem.
After all, shouldn’t old fashioned cold cash, aka licensing fees, be the end game for news organizations that DO put their own money on the line to pay for the real “news” that bloggers of all genres, shapes and sizes end up piggybacking off of and selling ads against for their own accounts?
At the end of the Web 2.0 day, will the shaky economic foundations of the derivitave blogosphere implode, I asked Denton and the New York Time’s About.com’s, Scott Meyer.
Speaking from his New York Times experience, Scott Meyer responded that mainstream media is OK with the (not so) quid pro quo, echoing a familar refrain that it is all about Google PageRank link love building. Denton, proud implementer of the VIA link at Gizmodo, did not have an opportunity to respond during the panel Q & A, but acknowledged to me that the “question” is a good one.
Such a good question, in fact, that Denton is now heeding my warning of a low-value, link-o-rama based blog fest: “It’s no longer enough to take stories from The New York Times, and add a dash of snark. Gawker needs to break and develop more stories,” a Gawker job listing stated, according to the New York Times.
The Times: “That dash of snark — the hallmark of Gawker since it was introduced in 2002 — is less valuable in a Web clogged with Gawker clones. Mr. Denton was apparently not impressed by any of the initial job applicants; within days he had decided to name himself managing editor.”
Not impressed? Denton perfectionism, or Denton slave driving??? If Gawker Media REALLY wants to compete with The New York Times, it will have to step up to the PAY plate! Real journalism does not come easily, or cheaply, as this professional blogger has long been originally reporting and analysing. SEE:
Does Huffington Post Exploit Bloggers AND Mainstream Media? and
If ‘We the Media’ Poaches Content, Who Pays for News Production? and
AP Sues VeriSign: News Aggregation ‘Business Model’ at Risk and
Tom Curley AP Crusade: Google AdSense Lawsuit Near? Thanks to Attributor and
Nielsen, Digimarc, Attributor: Free Internet Content Ride Is OVER!
New York Magazine recently turned the snark tables on Denton, billed “the attractive, upper-class gay Jewish Briton who owns almost all of Gawker Media,” in the expose: “Gawker and the rage of the underclass.” Author Vanessa Girgoriadis:
Like most journalists, I tend to have a defeatist attitude about Gawker, dismissing it as the Mystery Science Theater 3000 of journalism, or accepting its vague put-downs under the principle that any press is good press. After all, there aren’t lots of other news outlets that cover the minutiae of our lives, and we’re all happy for any smidge of attention and desperate for its pickups of our stories, which are increasingly essential to getting our work read. The prospect and high probability of revenge makes one think twice about retaliation. Plus, only pansies get upset about Gawker, and no real journalist considers himself a pansy. But there is a cost to this way of thinking, a cost that can be as high as getting mocked on your wedding day.
The cost of such a way of writing to Denton, though, is apparently very low:
Pinched nerves, carpal tunnel, swollen feet—it’s all part of the dastardly job, which at the top level can involve editing one post every fifteen minutes for nine hours a day, scanning 500 Websites via RSS for news every half-hour, and on “off-hours” keeping up with the news to prepare for tomorrow.
In the media world, publishers often get what they pay for, or don’t. Denton’s Valleywag, for big example. SEE:
Valleywag Breakdown: Drunken Imagination and Valleywag: Lots of Ham, Where’s the Beef?
What is Valleywag “Managing Editor’ Owen Thomas managing? NOT verifiable truths in “reporting” on actual, tragic events.
“A drunk employee kills all of the Websites you care about,” Thomas headlined in the heat of the Summer in good Digg-bait fashion, without caring to backup the accusation with reliable sourcing. A “tipster” was “credited,” as usual, but who knows, Thomas may even be “tipping” himself.
In his (not so) hard-hitting investigative series on the ripple effects of San Francicso power outages, Thomas also headlined “Angry mob gathers outside SF datacenter,” with photographic “proof”: eight mild mannered techies in casual business attire chatting on their cells while queing up patiently to enter an office building.
Thomas proudly takes his lack of credibility on the chin, literally, and even promises more! But, why shouldn’t he, with equally unprofessional new competitor Henry Blodget and his Kevin Ryan financed (not so) Silicon Alley Insider eagerly reguritating every bit of non-verified “SCOOP” that Valleywag poops out. SEE:
Henry Blodget Slams eBay’s Whitman: Yahoo’s Yang Next? and Henry Blodget 2.0: Silicon Alley Outsider Trolls Again and Blodget & Ryan: Cool, or Suck? WHAT Silicon Alley ‘Insider’!
Valleywag’s Thomas earlier this month: “I was duped on a Scoop. This isn’t the first rumor I got wrong. It won’t be the last one. All I can promise is that when I hear something, you’ll hear about it.”
YAY? Public inivtation for manipulation! Before Denton gets all media noble, he ought to get his existing journalism ducks in order.
PLUS: Google Knol: The End of Google.com, NOT Wikipedia and Google Zeitgeist: $200 University Payola AdWords Scam and Why Facebook Will NEVER Kill LinkedIn
ALSO: Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn About Face (book) and Digg: TechCrunch Bails on Arrington Web 2.0 Fave