4 ms·

"Partner with brands to create sponsored articles" Are you f*ing kidding? Sponsored articles are ads. The ad industry-driven conflation of editorial and ads is

"Partner with brands to create sponsored articles" Are you f*ing kidding? Sponsored articles are ads. The ad industry-driven conflation of editorial and ads is a major reason the media industry is suffering. Many publishers have become indistinguishable from one another thanks to their reliance on ad tech content – "native content" in Facebook parlance and the false hope of social media-driven traffic. In so doing, they've helped empower Google and Facebook and surrendered their own brand power, becoming purveyors of generic sponsored slurry. The original poster is not wrong about the problems with tracker-laden news sites. But he hasn't given much thought to solutions. "I don’t have a fix all band-aid to replace current revenue streams for news websites..." Do let us know when you figure it out. A lot of people have been trying to do so without success. Subscriptions...great for the publishers with huge audiences, not so much for smaller news sites. How many news subscriptions will people pay for after they sign on for the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal? There's a limit to the monthly bleed people will tolerate. And users donations are a bandage not a business model. People rely on donations for unexpected medical expenses in the US – that's a sign of system failure not a model for sustainability. If an answer is found, it will probably have to do with weaning people off social media. Or we'll just have to enjoy our cat videos while investigative journalism withers.

awinder 7y ago
Yeah I feel like sponsored content is going to be a flash in the pan on the timeline of history. I do read some sites that monetize that way, but I discount the value of what I’m reading so far that I don’t think that model is built to last. I think I have a somewhat lasting solution but people here especially are not going to like it. I think bezos buying the Washington Post and structure like that build the best version of journalism available to us right now. Structures like NPR and others which have large endowments are another, but basically news runs best when you divorce pure profit models and can run the thing at some kind of operational loss and keep it out of market forces as much as possible.
thomas 7y ago
Thank you for a thoughtful response to the article, which got more attention than it warranted.
repolfx 7y ago
great for the publishers with huge audiences, not so much for smaller news sites. How many news subscriptions will people pay for after they sign on for the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal? Well, does there need to be more than three? I'm not sure where the assumption came from that news is broken if we're not all consuming 15 different outlets every day. In the past it was normal for people to subscribe to just one news outlet! Three is pretty good going, and not going to break the bank for many readers.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  The number of people subscribing to all 3 of those publications has to be vanishingly small. But to your point: yes of course there needs to be more than 3. None of the publications mentioned cover local news. There's also the whole competition being a good thing. Democracy doesn't die in darkness. It dies in uniformity.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Seconded. Competition is good (esp. on commodities), but there are diminishing returns. Why would news require more competition than the market is naturally able to sustain?
stateofnounion 7y ago
The situation is more complicated. Anyone with sufficient money can effectively buy "content". For example: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/the-guardian-journalism-factory-farming https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal...
llamataboot 7y ago
I'm hoping that Apple News+ and similar models start to take off. It's not a cure-all, but if there's a huge take-up it could help a lot. I have a NYTimes subscription mainly to spend Sunday reading a big heavy newspaper made of paper (and to support journalism), but other than that I read stuff from all over and there's no one place I read everyday. I'm happy to pay $X/month and have it split up between a bunch of different places depending on what I'm reading...
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  I work for a company that publishes to Apple News+ (a project in which I'm directly and indirectly involved). It's definitely being taken seriously as a publishing platform.
  - asdff 7y ago
    I'm excited for it, but if it ends up being not in chronological order it's a non starter for me. You can pry my neatly ordered 1 line tall list of RSS feeds from my cold dead hands.
    - 52-6F-62 7y ago
      That would probably be a worthy improvement—a list view, and sortable. But AFAIK some feeds are chronologically ordered with a small "published @" stamp at the bottom of each card. Others are not. I think it depends on how they feed the channel, and otherwise the channel is a little agnostic. I only work with the premium content (bundled magazine issues — an entire issue is published at once) so I can't speak for the free content directly, but I know our free content is published to the channels when published to web, so they should be chronological, I think. Other outlets may have a different workflow. The "Today" page is curated as well as listing popular articles, so it might vary. So is Spotlight. We meet with Apple periodically so I'll keep that point in mind and ask them about it.
camillomiller 7y ago
This reply shows that you have absolutely no idea how an editorial business can work. Sponsored articles are completely fine, and actually a great source of almost-clean revenue if: - they are managed by marketing people and written by subjects different from the author - are sold with the clause of no editorial influence over the rest of the content - are part of broader "special project" that the journalist can even take part into. E.g. Getting sponsored by a camera equipment manufacturer to shot some documentaries in a field that has nothing to do with the high-end camera market won't affect the journalistic quality of the project. - are properly disclosed and fit the style and the narrative of the publication (i.e. they're not sore thumbs advertorials). There's many possible ways to do this right. Publications need the money, companies are eager to find new ways to get their story out. This, or we as a sector can die pure and immaculate. But still fucking die.
basscomm 7y ago
> How many news subscriptions will people pay for after they sign on for the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal? There's a limit to the monthly bleed people will tolerate. How many news subscriptions did people pay for when these publications were print-only?
cheald 7y ago
> Are you fing kidding? Sponsored articles are ads. Kinda, but not necessarily in a way that subverts the quality of the article. I used to work in media (and I'm thankfully out of it now), so I do have some inside perspective on this. Sponsored articles (or more colloquially, "native advertising") don't mean "we write what the brand wants us to". It's usually "Oh, Samsung wants non-display advertising for the Galaxy S10, so they cut a deal with us where we'll write a series of 10 human interest stories about things related to how peoples' lives are improved by mobile technology, and it'll be prominently brought to you by the Samsung Galaxy S10". The story isn't about Samsung's product. It's more about attaching the product and brand name to a topically-related story than it is about shilling a particular brand or product - at least when it's done right. The brand shouldn't have any editorial control over the article, other than a high-level agreement as to the topic. When it's done well, your ad department sells the contract, editorial gets their story series topic, and then there's a hard line between editorial and advertising that isn't breached. It's obviously still advertising, but it doesn't _have_ to be integrity-free shilling. Given the massive hemorrhaging of display advertising revenue, the utter collapse of video-based advertising, and the disappointing returns on donation and paywall models, well-disclosed, editorially-independent native advertising often turns out to be the most reliable (and maybe even most stomachable) revenue stream for a lot of outfits. Of course, the temptation is obviously "well, just let us see the article before you run it..." which slips into editorial control, and then you are just straight-up shilling. That happens, it's ugly, and it is just naked advertising. But it isn't necessarily that bad.

awinder 7y ago

Yeah I feel like sponsored content is going to be a flash in the pan on the timeline of history. I do read some sites that monetize that way, but I discount the value of what I’m reading so far that I don’t think that model is built to last. I think I have a somewhat lasting solution but people here especially are not going to like it. I think bezos buying the Washington Post and structure like that build the best version of journalism available to us right now. Structures like NPR and others which have large endowments are another, but basically news runs best when you divorce pure profit models and can run the thing at some kind of operational loss and keep it out of market forces as much as possible.

thomas 7y ago

Thank you for a thoughtful response to the article, which got more attention than it warranted.

repolfx 7y ago

great for the publishers with huge audiences, not so much for smaller news sites. How many news subscriptions will people pay for after they sign on for the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal? Well, does there need to be more than three? I'm not sure where the assumption came from that news is broken if we're not all consuming 15 different outlets every day. In the past it was normal for people to subscribe to just one news outlet! Three is pretty good going, and not going to break the bank for many readers.

chrisco255 7y ago
The number of people subscribing to all 3 of those publications has to be vanishingly small. But to your point: yes of course there needs to be more than 3. None of the publications mentioned cover local news. There's also the whole competition being a good thing. Democracy doesn't die in darkness. It dies in uniformity.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Seconded. Competition is good (esp. on commodities), but there are diminishing returns. Why would news require more competition than the market is naturally able to sustain?

stateofnounion 7y ago

The situation is more complicated. Anyone with sufficient money can effectively buy "content". For example: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal-welfare/the-guardian-journalism-factory-farming https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/us-policy/farm-animal...

llamataboot 7y ago

I'm hoping that Apple News+ and similar models start to take off. It's not a cure-all, but if there's a huge take-up it could help a lot. I have a NYTimes subscription mainly to spend Sunday reading a big heavy newspaper made of paper (and to support journalism), but other than that I read stuff from all over and there's no one place I read everyday. I'm happy to pay $X/month and have it split up between a bunch of different places depending on what I'm reading...

52-6F-62 7y ago
I work for a company that publishes to Apple News+ (a project in which I'm directly and indirectly involved). It's definitely being taken seriously as a publishing platform.
- asdff 7y ago
  I'm excited for it, but if it ends up being not in chronological order it's a non starter for me. You can pry my neatly ordered 1 line tall list of RSS feeds from my cold dead hands.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    That would probably be a worthy improvement—a list view, and sortable. But AFAIK some feeds are chronologically ordered with a small "published @" stamp at the bottom of each card. Others are not. I think it depends on how they feed the channel, and otherwise the channel is a little agnostic. I only work with the premium content (bundled magazine issues — an entire issue is published at once) so I can't speak for the free content directly, but I know our free content is published to the channels when published to web, so they should be chronological, I think. Other outlets may have a different workflow. The "Today" page is curated as well as listing popular articles, so it might vary. So is Spotlight. We meet with Apple periodically so I'll keep that point in mind and ask them about it.

camillomiller 7y ago

This reply shows that you have absolutely no idea how an editorial business can work. Sponsored articles are completely fine, and actually a great source of almost-clean revenue if: - they are managed by marketing people and written by subjects different from the author - are sold with the clause of no editorial influence over the rest of the content - are part of broader "special project" that the journalist can even take part into. E.g. Getting sponsored by a camera equipment manufacturer to shot some documentaries in a field that has nothing to do with the high-end camera market won't affect the journalistic quality of the project. - are properly disclosed and fit the style and the narrative of the publication (i.e. they're not sore thumbs advertorials). There's many possible ways to do this right. Publications need the money, companies are eager to find new ways to get their story out. This, or we as a sector can die pure and immaculate. But still fucking die.

basscomm 7y ago

> How many news subscriptions will people pay for after they sign on for the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal? There's a limit to the monthly bleed people will tolerate. How many news subscriptions did people pay for when these publications were print-only?

cheald 7y ago

> Are you fing kidding? Sponsored articles are ads. Kinda, but not necessarily in a way that subverts the quality of the article. I used to work in media (and I'm thankfully out of it now), so I do have some inside perspective on this. Sponsored articles (or more colloquially, "native advertising") don't mean "we write what the brand wants us to". It's usually "Oh, Samsung wants non-display advertising for the Galaxy S10, so they cut a deal with us where we'll write a series of 10 human interest stories about things related to how peoples' lives are improved by mobile technology, and it'll be prominently brought to you by the Samsung Galaxy S10". The story isn't about Samsung's product. It's more about attaching the product and brand name to a topically-related story than it is about shilling a particular brand or product - at least when it's done right. The brand shouldn't have any editorial control over the article, other than a high-level agreement as to the topic. When it's done well, your ad department sells the contract, editorial gets their story series topic, and then there's a hard line between editorial and advertising that isn't breached. It's obviously still advertising, but it doesn't _have_ to be integrity-free shilling. Given the massive hemorrhaging of display advertising revenue, the utter collapse of video-based advertising, and the disappointing returns on donation and paywall models, well-disclosed, editorially-independent native advertising often turns out to be the most reliable (and maybe even most stomachable) revenue stream for a lot of outfits. Of course, the temptation is obviously "well, just let us see the article before you run it..." which slips into editorial control, and then you are just straight-up shilling. That happens, it's ugly, and it is just naked advertising. But it isn't necessarily that bad.