From time to time, we provide an overview of one broad MediaShift topic, annotated with online resources and plenty of tips. The idea is to help you understand the topic, learn the jargon, and take action. We’ve previously covered Twitter, local watchdog news sites, and Net neutrality, among other topics. This week MediaShift editorial intern Davis Shaver looks at the “content farm” phenomenon.
As traditional news outlets continue to lay off journalists, a new generation of companies is betting big on online content. Their approaches differ significantly, but are all built on the common premise that for online content to be profitable, it has to be produced at a truly massive scale. The proliferation of these so-called “content farms” — a name the companies predictably dislike — has raised the ire of journalists and pundits alike.
“If you want to know how our profession ends, look at Demand Media,” wrote Jason Fry, a former Wall Street Journal columnist who edits Reinventing the Newsroom.
Of course Demand Media is far from being the first online content company built on search-driven data. Both About.com and Weblogs Inc. built content based on popular search terms, and employed large teams of content producers and bloggers to create stories to help answer common questions.
It’s easy to see why Demand Media’s strategy has been replicated by start-ups and start-arounds alike. When Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt discovered that algorithmically-generated assignments could generate 4.9 times the revenue of traditional editor-generated ideas, the sheer profitability of this new content paradigm guaranteed that companies like Demand Media would be viewed as outliers in the context of a news industry facing significant fiscal troubles.
This is the first article in what will be a full week of PBS MediaShift special coverage dedicated to next generation content companies. We’re calling this series “Beyond Content Farms” and each day will see us examine different aspects of these companies and what they mean for the web and the media world. Below is an overview of the major companies that are taking a “content farm” strategy of pushing out massive amounts of content, a primer that sets out some of the key players, what they do, and what their goals are.
AOL
Overview: When AOL severed ties with Time Warner last year, it took the opportunity to reinvent its failing business model, which had been predicated largely on it dial-up service. Under the leadership of CEO Tim Armstrong, AOL has embraced a mission of becoming the world’s largest producer of high-quality content. A corollary goal: to be the world’s largest net hirer of journalists next year.
Brands: AOL’s portal, AOL.com, serves more than 59 million people in the U.S. monthly, a firehose of traffic that the company can direct at a large portfolio of editorial brands, which include major sites such as AOL News, Black Voices, and Engadget.
Content platform: AOL operates two major platforms for freelance content production. Seed, which AOL built itself, deals largely with the production of text-based and photographic content. StudioNow, which AOL bought this past winter for $36.5 million, caters to video production. Between the two platforms, AOL has access to more than 40,000 content creators, a small army that the company hopes to increasingly utilize in the coming months.
Algorithm: Since the inception of its new content-based strategy, AOL has said that identifying content opportunities through demand/search data would be a major focus of the corporation. But nearly eight months later, AOL’s David Mason, who runs its content platforms, said told me in an interview: “We are in our early days with demand technology. The floodgates have been somewhat shut and as months go by we’ll see them open.”
Local: AOL has entered the local news space in a big way with Patch, which had 83 sites live in communities around the country as of early July and many more in the pipeline. Each site is run by a professional journalist who reports, edits, and curates. “What we’re looking for is nothing less than tomorrow’s journalists,” said Patch editor in chief Brian Farnham in an interview with MediaShift. Editors are able to hire freelancers through Seed to round out coverage, namely to populate the community’s business directory with rich content. “We’re sending teams to communities who will go door to door and collect data about those places, structure it in our templates, and have a really rich Yellow Pages,” said Farnham. “The concept of Patch was not just to find a reporter and editor, it was to create a modern online platform to digitize the town.”
Demand Media
Overview: Demand Media seems to be headed towards a $1.5 billion IPO, proof positive enough for the many competitors who have since embraced its algorithmic approach to online content. This approach is necessary to achieve its daily production of 6,000 written and video-based pieces of content. CEO Richard Rosenblatt won’t call the 10,000 people who produce content for Demand Studios journalists, but he believes Demand Media helps journalism by generating content and revenue for outlets that can “take that money to fund other reporting.”
Chief revenue officer Joanne Bradford (formerly at Yahoo) has said that the company’s immediate goal is to outgrow AOL and then Yahoo, but that might be just the beginning. Rosenblatt has said that the company’s true goal is to publish the world’s content. The similarities with Google, whose mission is to organize the world’s information, don’t end there: Google was the last technology company to break $1 billion in its IPO.
Brands: Demand Media’s largest brand is eHow.com, home to 2 million “solutions” that reach more than 59 million people in the U.S. monthly. Other brands include Livestrong.com and Cracked.com. Demand Media is also the largest uploader to YouTube.
Platform: Demand Studios is Demand Media’s content platform. After titles are generated by the Demand Media algorithm (described below) and reviewed by title proofers, they are submitted as potential assignments for Demand Media’s network of freelance content producers. For more information about how Demand Studios’ editorial workflow functions, check out this BuzzMachine post by Jeff Jarvis interviewing Steven Kydd, who oversees production of content on the Demand Studios platform.
Algorithm: The Demand Media algorithm, the most famous of its kind, received the fullest treatment to date in a Wired article published last fall. Kydd, the executive VP in charge of Demand Studios, explained the algorithm’s purpose in a column published last December. “These algorithms help companies to predict this content will have an audience, an advertiser, and the ability to get traffic to an article or video before its creation,” wrote Kydd. To accomplish this goal, the algorithm is fed data about what users are searching for or talking about on social networks, which keywords are being bought by advertisers, and what content is already available. Based on that information, the Demand Media algorithm generates bundles of keywords that are translated into meaningful headlines by a second algorithm called the Knowledge Engine. At that point, an editor proofs the headline and submits it as a potential assignment on the Demand Studios content platform.
Local: Demand Media has not entered the local content market.
Examiner.com
Overview: With over 90,000 pieces of content published monthly, Examiner.com has filled out its 238 city sites and expanded its staff of “Examiners” to over 42,000. CEO Rick Blair told Forbes that he doesn’t think the site is getting the respect its traffic deserves, especially when compared to less mature offerings like AOL’s Patch initiative.
Brands: Examiner.com attracts more than 13 million people in the U.S. monthly to its domain, which generates geo-targeted content depending on the location from which the user is accessing the site. Each of the Examiner.com city sites is populated with locally relevant content and filled out with nationally relevant or “evergreen” content. Much of the branding on the site derives from the writers themselves, who have titles like New York Celebrity Dog Examiner” and Commercial Real Estate Examiner”. The site refers to its writers as “Examiners” and they are compensated based on a formula that factors in things such as traffic and ad clicks. The company is frank about saying that being an Examiner is at best a part-time gig for the vast majority of people.
Platform: Examiner will soon launch a completely redesigned version of its website and content management system. It is moving to Drupal 7, and is currently training its Examiners on what to expect, and how to use the system. (More details about its training program will be featured in a subsequent report this week.)
Algorithm: Examiner does not use an algorithm to assign content. Each Examiner is expected to generate her own content within an assigned category.
Local: Examiner.com’s main focus is local content, but Blair cautioned that, “We offer stories about the best bike trips in the city and where to go on the weekend. We’re really not covering news.”
Yahoo
Overview: Yahoo bought Associated Content for over $100 million this spring, some say as a step away from the high-cost content Yahoo was producing through a partnership with former NBC entertainment head Ben Silverman. The purchase greatly increased Yahoo’s ability to produce content for its network. Associated Content had also been courted by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, an original investor in the company who was a college roommate of Associated Content founder Luke Beatty.
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has had trouble identifying the company’s mission, but it is reported to be preparing a new product strategy that will be released later this month. Expect it to focus on four main areas of content: Premium, social, crowdsourced, and original.
Brands: Yahoo’s portal, Yahoo.com, reaches over 122 million people in the U.S. monthly. It also has popular verticals in a number of categories, including news and sports. AssociatedContent.com itself attracts more than 16 million people in the U.S. monthly.
Platform: The Associated Content platform is home to more than 380,000 contributors. In contrast to Demand Studios, contributors do not need to complete an application process to begin accepting assignments or submitting content. The Associated Content editorial staff, which unlike Demand Studios and Seed.com is not composed of freelancers, review more than 50,000 pieces of content each month.
Algorithm: Associated Content uses an algorithm to determine potentially profitable assignments, but hasn’t said much about it publicly. However, with the influx of data from the Yahoo mothership, expect to see demand-driven content appear on an increasing number of Yahoo properties. Yahoo has already begun integrating demand data into the editorial practices of sites such as the Upshot, a new news blog run by Yahoo News.
Local: CEO Carol Bartz has said that Yahoo users want to see more local content, adding credence to rumors that Yahoo is preparing for a major push into the local content market.
More Reading
In addition to the articles linked above, here are a few more stories about next generation content companies:
Groups magnify chances of Google hits at Financial Times
Content Farms Compete With Book Publishers, Not News Sites at Advertising Age
Journalists Worried About Content Farms Are Missing The Point – The Web Has Always Been Filled With Crap at Techdirt
Content ‘Farms’ – Killing Journalism — While Making a Killing at The Wrap
Jay Rosen Interviews Demand Media – Are Content Farms Demonic? at ReadWriteWeb
Google eyes Demand Media’s way with words at Financial Times
The End Of Hand Crafted Content at TechCrunch
Inside the Examiner.com Purchase of NowPublic – Hyper-Local Media at BNET
To see all stories in the Beyond Content Farms series, go here”.
Davis Shaver is MediaShift’s editorial intern. He is also the founder and publisher of Onward State, an online news organization at Penn State. He studies history and the intersection of science, technology, and society.
View Comments (60)
@Hyper-Local News Hound
DS has an ethics code. I can't imagine libel entering into the equation anywhere.
Lynn: Most, if not all, companies have an ethics policy. But print and online publishing carry very specific laws and regulations that authors, writers, columnists and reporters should be aware of. Legal ignorance is no defense in most cases.
Does Demand Media offer media and business law courses for its freelancers? If so, are they offered by a reputable organization? These might be helpful to writers who would like to get information through non-Web, non-regurgitated resources. For example, how does Demand Media deal with anonymous sources? What happens to a writer who uses direct quotes from a libelous source? Does the writer or the company get sued? Or both?
As you can see, I have a lot of questions about how content information is verified and what protections Demand Media gives its writers, if any. Are Demand Media writers given credentials similar to reporters' credentials as members of the working press, and if so, through what organization? For medically related articles, are writers solely responsible for any and all outcomes that may arise from inaccurate information? Who handles subpoenas and litigation in these cases?
Who is held liable for inaccurate, dangerous or illegal material? Does Demand Media issue corrections or retractions for these issues?
I may be wrong, but it's my understanding that Demand Media may have some problems with copyright issues regarding simple everyday words as well as non-accepted, writer-created articles. Does Demand Media own and keep in their possession anything and everything that a writer creates, regardless of whether something is accepted and/or published?
Will Demand Media sue the writer if he or she uses anything for profit that the company claims is copyrighted?
As a reporter who belongs to a press organization and the Writer's Guild, you surely can see how someone like me would be wary of personal liabilities. Without the backing of my organizations, a single lawsuit could personally destroy me.
I'm curious about all this, but I think I'll stick with what I know.
Hyper-local News - the empire doesn't work the way you seem to think. I don't know what a "non-accepted, writer-created article" is, but no, if Demand doesn't buy an article, the writer still owns it and can do as they like with it. A writer can't use anything for profit or otherwise that Demand has bought, because the writer no longer owns it.
Sources are never anonymous and all are checked by the editors. I can't imagine how libel could crop up in any of the articles, unless some celebrity decides to sue because a writer answered the question "Where was So and So born?" and the celebrity can prove the writer made up the answer.
Simple everyday words are usually not copyrighted.
What would a Demand writer need with credentials? They do not go out and cover stories or conduct interviews, as a rule. If information on medical issues, side effects, etc., comes from the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, the AMA, etc., do you really think a Demand writer or Demand itself would be held liable for the inaccuracy of information those organizations put out? The writers do not turn to Mrs. Mariah's Palm Reading and Natural Health Emporium for information on current treatments for breast cancer. They get it from organizations like those above. So does a health reporter at the Podunk Times when she wants to write a feature letting the citizens of Podunk know a new breast cancer treatment has been developed. I'd guess the liability is the same. Does your newspaper offer you classes in law? Mine never did. None of them.
I don't know what the protections may be for LiveStrong writers, most of whom are vetted for experience in their field. The rest of the farm workers tend to pick articles that require knowledge they have or know how to find, and are backed up by sources that have some respect in the field (.gov, .org, .edu sites, for example). They usually don't write about how to build an IED, grow fields of pot undetected, or what mints can make their alcohol-laden breath smell fresh to the traffic cop who stops them.
Write what you know applies in spades, because you can write faster and with fewer mistakes that way. More production = more money.
Lynne: Hi! Thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions. But now I have even more questions.
1. Does Demand Media only hire writers and editors who have a bachelor's degree or higher in journalism or communications? That would account for not offering some type of media law course or seminar, especially the new digital media laws for the ever-changing technology.
2. It sounds like writers are required to use only Internet-based sources. Is that correct? So if I wanted to write a story about how diamonds are imported into the U.S., I could not interview a real person and use direct quotes from that interview? This could not be verified by a Demand Media editor, so it would not be allowed, right?
3. I ask about writers' credentials because it gives reporters access to many large Internet databases, some of which are free with unlimited use for members of the working press. I would think Demand Media would prefer to have the writers have access to these kinds of verifiable resources. Press credentials also allow writers access to many events all over the world, but since a writer's own experience can't be verified by an editor, I guess a press badge holds no special advantage to a Demand Media writer.
4A. Copyright questions. A friend of a friend of friend told me that Demand Media claims to hold copyrights for every single word that is generated by the company for writers to use. Example: A Demand Media article title of "Importing Diamonds." Does Demand Media claim to hold a copyright on the phrase "Importing Diamonds?" If so, how does Demand Media enforce its copyrights on seemingly innocuous words and phrases that appear throughout the Internet?
4B. If a Demand Media writer submits a story that is rejected or is abandoned for whatever reasons, does Demand Media continue to maintain copyrights on that material? Does Demand Media continue to physically hold that material in its database so that the writer would be accused of plagiarism if the story was published elsewhere? This is important because that practice severely would limit a Demand Media writer's ability to earn money elsewhere from unreleased, unpublished material that Demand Media would continue to hold for however long.
5. Libel/Defamation of Character: How would Demand Media handle a writer's use of Internet-verifiable direct quotes that are libelous in nature and unbeknown to the writer? Example: According to Dr. Whoever of some hospital, the drug Chantix "contains toxic ingredients that cause patients to commit suicide or cause harm to others." Dr. Whoever cites John Doe, of Anytown, USA, who, after taking Chantix, said he "felt like killing everyone." Let's assume every quote is Internet-verifiable on the hospital website. When John Doe sees the Demand Media story and wants a retraction, correction or clarification, who is responsible for addressing his concerns? And is Dr. Whoever directly liable for his Chantix statements or Demand Media or the Demand Media writer?
The bottomline: Are Demand Media writers legally held accountable for merely passing on Internet-verifiable quotes and information that were libelous in nature from the beginning? Technically, this situation is called the "conduit" fallacy. This is why I think some kind of media law seminar would be beneficial to Demand Media writers.
So sorry this is so long, but I want to do my own due diligence before attempting to jump on the content farm hay wagon. I'm all for making more money, but I don't want to compromise my integrity and reputation as a reporter for the sake of making an extra buck.
Thanks in advance ... should you again take the extra time and patience to answer my questions.
1. No. Teachers, attorneys, doctors, physicists (well, maybe), single moms, college students and others write for DS. A degree is not required. BUT. LiveStrong has more stringent requirements for experience, training, etc. I do not know what those are.
2. You'd have to ask an editor. I don't know. Many books are not verifiable by the editor since they are not online, and those are allowed as references. Really, though, why would a writer want to spend money for long-distance phone calls, or gasoline for in-person interviews? Tax-deductible, sure, but that benefit doesn't happen until next April.
3. Right. A press credential isn't necessary unless a writer wants to attend some event and possibly learn something or make contacts for resources (who can be queried via e-mail). Many freelance writers, especially those who write for trades, have no credentials and can't be members of some press associations.
4a. I always thought you could trademark but not copyright a phrase. You can't copyright a title. DS is not above copyright law. You need to ask DS the question, as I don't speak for the company.
4b. Rejected - no. DS never owned the copyright in the first place. Abandoned - if the title goes back in the pool, the writer's work evaporates, so there is nothing to copyright.
5. No clue. Again, you'd have to ask DS. If the site is the CDC, I guess we're all in trouble if they're wrong. The company published the story, so I'd guess they're as liable as whatever newspaper you work for is if you write a story with this type of information in it. I don't think there is a way to retract anything from the Internet. Unlike a printed story, however, the story on the Internet can be changed.
Most of the people writing for DS aren't going to quote someone unless they are sure the quote is safe, i.e. a doctor talking about possible side effects of a drug. You know how it's done, I'm sure. "Doctor XYZ claims" "Possible side effects" and my all-time favorite, "alleged."
That's how newspapers do it, too. Either you are careful to keep the onus off yourself or you don't write it.
This is an interesting conversation!
Lynne: I can't thank you enough for taking the extra time and patience to explain how things work at Demand Media. I wasn't sure if you would be willing to respond to my "inquisition," so I did e-mail my questions and concerns to Demand Media. If I play my cards right, maybe I could turn my inquiry into an interview with the owner(s) of Demand Media.
As I'm sure you and many at Demand Media have heard that old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." As a reporter with an inquiring and cynical mind, I can't help but think there is something fishy going on behind the scenes.
Do you or any other Demand Media writers who you know ever feel like you're waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop? It's been a decade since the big "dot.com" bust ... how long do you think this tech boom will last?
Geez ... I'm at it again! Sorry, Lynne. I'll direct my questions to the proper source. But this whole content farm thing is very intriguing.
I think, for now, I'll just sit back and observe for awhile before jumping into this decade's bubble.
Thanks again, Lynne! You have been super-nice and informative. And you have the patience of a saint for responding to me.
Take care and best wishes!
Heck, I'm nosy as heck, too, Hyper.
No, I don't feel like the other shoe is going to drop. I feel like I need to work more and get bigger paychecks. :)
I'm sure the content farm thing will change, but I don't think it will go away. Despite what some people think, the articles have value to readers who just need some quick guidance on getting copies of divorce papers in another state or who are merely curious about where that celebrity was born or who are hosting a party for kids and desperately need ideas to keep them busy. Who has time to look up all the resources for those things? And who thinks their local newspaper can or even wants to provide these answers?
If I live in Minnesota and want to go to the Daytona 500 but can't afford a hotel, I want to know where I can camp close to the racetrack and what there is to do when the race isn't underway.
This information isn't valuable to your city editor, unless you're in Daytona. The information is only valuable to a percentage of racing fans going to Daytona for the first time. None of them read your paper, so how else can they find out, and find out quickly? And are they going to research individual campgrounds, or get a "digest" to help them plan which campgrounds might best fit their budget?
It's just different. I don't think every subject will ever be covered. Like the cartoon of the guy sitting at the computer staring in disbelief at the message, "You have reached the end of the Internet. What would you like to do next?"
Will you post what you find out about DS? Or are you saving it for an article (to which I hope you'll post a link)?
Hyper-Local News Hound,
Great questions and great points, very much reflective of my thoughts when I got into this business two years ago. But I've learned a few things since then. (I write about it on my blog.)
Too good to be true? You've articulated what most people wonder when they start writing for the "content farms." But it's not - well, certainly not more than being hired in conventional media is "too good to be true" (which it usually is, once you find out your editor isn't supportive, work politics take up too much of your energy, your supposedly spiffy work health plan can't get you a doctor's visit without a three month waiting period, you don't get the respect you were promised, and all the other assorted disillusionments of the working world ).
Content farms are pulp magazines. Those weren't too good to be true. They were incredibly lucrative transitional media, and they enabled creative individuals to pursue innovative endeavors, resulting in an explosion of wildly popular genre fiction and film and print magazines, not to mention social, biological, and physical science research and inventions.
The opportunity appears too good to be true because we haven't seen the like in about a century. What we've been seeing for several decades, hegemonically, is slow economic decline, in which wealthy entities have gotten wealthier and competition amongst individuals has become fiercer.
The inability to get ahead has become so prevalent that Generations X and Y are seen as valueless, because they can't compete in the working world with the entrenched older generations (and recognize the fact, and say "to hell with that.").
In the last few decades, society's gone bonkers offering multiple degrees in a thousand fields, along with certifications, test-taking aids, and other career assissts. That is not about specialization or making people eminently qualified; it's about competition.
When the competition decreases because more work is available and more hands are needed, then entrepreuneurs draw from the pool. And this means a lot of raw talent that hasn't been seen in decades gets a chance to develop.
Opportunities for individuals with no requirements for official certifications, just plenty of talent and willingness and time to work, are exploding for the first time since the 1920s and 1930s. Your average twenty-something and housewife and the new breed of househusband now has a chance to write for content farms OR themselves online.
Demand Media and its assorted content producers are making money not off a flash-in-the-pan opportunity, but because Richard Rosenblatt spotted a worldwide economic shift. That same shift is responsible for the economic depression, believe it or not.
Lynne was very right when she said the content farm model will change. It will go through major changes, as will online advertising models. Gradually, we're all moving online. Every one of us. The world.
And what we're experiencing now is nothing to what we'll see when digital language translation software becomes good. Imagine billions of Chinese, Russian, Indian, etc. people speaking to the English people of the world for the first time. Imagine what that will do to commerce.
It's an economic necessity. The world's resources can't support the kind of consumption that underpinned the 20th century growth model. (No, I'm not saying we're becoming communist. Old economic models, all of them, are going away, and new ones are appearing, with strange new faces.)
As we all get online, everything will change, in an almost bizarre futuristic sci-fi manner.
You can see this from history. Each time a new mode of transportation supplants the old, people change where they are and where they can go, will go, and want to go. This changes the face of commerce. It was true with the wheel, the horse, the boat, etc.
In the modern world, the railroad changed where your everyday, non-pioneer person could live and move on a day-to-day basis. It brought Sears homes to America (Research the history of the Sears homes and think about the mortgage bubble when you do. They had a huge impact. It's very revealing.) The recessions of the late 19th century followed.
The automobile caused a similar, but far more revolutionary, upheaval decades later. It brought suburbs. A new kind of production. A new kind of distribution.
In the early 20th century, we saw an explosion of new opportunity for the "little guy," followed by a depression that marked the end of the horse-and-carriage-to-railroad model of commerce, and the beginning of an economic system where people could move in different ways - and did.
How does this relate to the Internet? The Internet is not a new mode of communication - or not only. It's a new mode of transportation. People are putting themselves in different places. This seemingly innocuous change is huge. Because of it, the airline, construction, banking, automotive, and other industries are toppling.
People are moving away from cities. They're relying less on the car. They're moving online seeking information, jobs, and (since 1996) products.
Demand Media might very well fall, if and when its writers learn they can write for themselves for more profit. (I haven't written for Demand Studios in over a year, because I am publishing on my own now.) But not online writing. That won't go away for a long time.
It's not too good to be true. There will be crashes. But it's not going the way of the hula hoop.
Perhaps we want to stop and discuss what we are all describing as "journalism"?
Perhaps we need new words to cover the difference in what's being "reported"?
Whatever happen to the words "copywriter" or "content writer"?
On the issue of being paid what your worth mentioned more then a few times here: Can we suppose that Watergate reporter Daniel Schorr might have covered the story differently if he had being paid by the word?
Can people afford to spend a lot of time in the search of truth anymore? (What about the sometimes required tongue loosening money, buying your informant a drink, tolls, and travel costs?)
And as far as getting your news from Jay Leno - while that may be the truth for many, I don't know that I would brag that it's my only source. Dave Letterman does a pretty good job don't you think?
Do you think more journalism schools should require a minor in comedy just to insure higher employability?
Maybe journalism schools should have a "minimum word per minute typing test" requirement before graduation to insure a better living standard for those they call graduates?
What do journalism schools actually think about these subjects discussed above anyway?
Lastly, isn't this what journalistic photographers have to kvetch about with every Tom, Dick, and Jane with a cell phone on Youtube?
Could they be called "copy-photographers"? Or maybe "filler-photographers"? Is that only true if they took that cell phone pic while in their jammies? (I'll start looking for folks in their jammies at the next political convention.)
I have a point here - maybe some of you will be able to read between my lines.
Oh and we didn't even get to talk about the word schlock... (Yiddish has been a lovely lender to the English language hasn't it?)
MadelineHere
http://www.180DegreesStudio.com
Nope, didn't get it, Madeline. Many magazines (and newspapers, if you're a stringer) pay by the word. Does a writer do more or less for that paycheck than he would if he's on salary at a magazine or newspaper? Was Daniel Schorr highly paid BEFORE Watergate?
Who bragged that they get their news from Jay Leno?
What is a "journalistic photographer"? And why do you think "we are all" describing content as journalism? Content articles are not journalism and I don't remember anyone saying they were. Journalists cover news and content is not news. I don't get the confusion and I still don't understand the snobbery dripping from some of the comments here.
MadelineHere said, "What about the sometimes required tongue loosening money, buying your informant a drink, tolls, and travel costs?)"
In the old days, newspaper ethics prohibited paying for information. If that has changed, shame on them. In any event, you're still talking as if you think the kind of articles produced at DS are news. I cannot imagine anyone in any segment of DS needing to have an informant.
NerdWriterMom's comment is better than the original article in so many ways.