I did not know there were any "journalists and media outlets" left. I thought they all went to the page hit generating, other sites headline reporting, Fanboy/FanGirl opinion blog model?
I would imagine true journalists have a hard time getting paid!
Group warns of blog 'content mills'
Summary
A small trade group is trying to drum up industry concern about "content mills," a fast-growing sector of the digital media business that publish loads of cheap, fast stories.
Topics
A small trade group called the Internet Content Syndication Council (ICSC) has been circulating a document since late May--highlighted Tuesday in an AdWeek article--to drum up industry concern about "content mills," a fast-growing sector of the digital media business that publish loads of cheap, fast stories (mostly created by low-paid freelancers) that rank high in search engine results, and run ads against them.
Content mills like Demand Media, AOL's Seed.com, and Associated Content (freshly acquired by Yahoo) say they're streamlining the creation of print and multimedia content up to the speed of the Digital Age, filling up holes in the Web with new, often very niche-oriented material. But they have also unleashed a bogeyman of a business model onto the Web, with many journalists and media outlets claiming that their craft is getting cheapened, perhaps fatally so.
For more of this story, read Will blog posts get stamps of quality? on CNET News.
Talkback Most Recent of 9 Talkback(s)
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AboveAverageJoe8th Jul 2010 -
RE: Group warns of blog 'content mills'
The content mills have too much of a potential to be rumor mills. Good journalism includes fact checking to prevent spreading incorrect or misleading information.
sboverie@...8th Jul 2010 -
Sounds like big media to me
"The content mills have too much of a potential to be rumor mills."
Have you watched MSNBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, NBC and all the others lately?
Have you read the papers lately?
That's all they are... opinion mills. No real reporting.
"Good journalism includes fact checking to prevent spreading incorrect or misleading information."
And if there were any good journalists left then they would be doing that. UNfortunately the depth of thier reporting and fact checking is about as deep as water on the surface of a sand dune in the Sahara Desert.
There is No delving into the story. Just making it up, editorializing, and using misleading headlines.
Where did the professional journalists go. It is no longer journalism. Sensationalism and fiction are more like it.
Albee_Freeoneday8th Jul 2010 -
RE: Group warns of blog 'content mills'
@Albee_Freeoneday
As early as two years ago, I worked for a newspaper that practiced real investigative journalism, complete with fact checking and practiced accountability. We kept our opinion section and our news section very separate.
We went out of business due to lack of advertising.
grassdogstudio8th Jul 2010 -
It's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
"journalists and media outlets claiming that their craft is getting cheapened, perhaps fatally so"
Wah, Wah, Wah... I hear the babbies crying again. Innovative entrepeunes come up with a way to do something faster, cheaper, AND better and then the babies come out and cry.
Tough. Perhaps these "journalists and media outlets" are way overpaid.
Perhaps if they actually did research and reported ALL the facts people would be willing to pay more for the ENTIRE story, not just bits and bites.Albee_Freeoneday8th Jul 2010 -
RE: Group warns of blog 'content mills'
@Albee_Freeoneday
I've seen the pay scale for professional news stories. They are most definitely not getting over paid.
The industry is undergoing a fundimental change forced upon it by a combination of technology and culture. It is really painful and warrents the whining.
The only thing you've got right is that there is NOTHING anyone can do about it, except adapt.
The reason that it seems like even the established news media are just opinion mills is that this change has been going on for far longer than the last five years. It started with T.V. and the internet only excellerated it. It all has to do with ratings and advertising money.grassdogstudio8th Jul 2010 -
RE: Group warns of blog 'content mills'
@Albee_Freeoneday There is nothing innovative about this in any way. Faster and cheaper, yes. Better? You're an idiot if you think so.
davidmeridian9th Jul 2010 -
Evolution will continue
Today we have a lot of mass-produced articles, "advertorials", outright plagiarism, and general trash out on the internet. Search engine optimization and hit generation is the name of the game, and the end result is everything from wasted time, deceptive advertising, baldfaced fraud, ID theft and criminal hacking.
In short, it's a jungle out there and it's costing both providers (traditional media companies) and users (us) a lot of money and grief. But we're stuck with it until the next wave of innovation hits. What will it be?
- Less reliance on generic search engines. Google, Yahoo and Bing all have the same problem, indiscriminate search algorithms and easily-gamed content controls. Today people seem to be amazingly tolerant of this. But look at it from a different angle: what would you thing of a grocery market that displayed green-painted feces next to the fresh okra in the produce section? Would you even bother to enter the door of a place like that? But every day people enter searches in Google for everything from shopping deals to serious medical advice, and tolerate sifting through the dreck and filth that is returned.
- Reputation and crowdsourcing. These are still in the process of maturing, and are subject to manipulation and gaming, but they have the potential to filter out deceptive or fraudulent content.
- Branding. Brands are still powerful psychological entities, even on the Internet. Branded content aggregators (like ZD) and advertisers are finding new models to leverage brands, but it has been relatively slow going for many. This is much more mature in the merchandising sector, where Amazon and iTunes have been able to leverage their brands effectively. The success of Amazon Markets is a "gold standard" that content suppliers need to examine closely.
Finally, a huge number of journalists have deluded themselves over the years about their value proposition. They underestimated the value of *information access* compared to the value of editing, writing, and distribution. Newsrooms had exclusive access to the wire services and reporters cultivated exclusive sources. That is all gone now. When the wire service feeds are freely available to all, and when previously reclusive sources started providing their information hosted on their own websites, that part of the value proposition was lost forever. Journalists have attempted to cover the hole with everything from "mash-ups" to "expert analysis" but honestly, they have done a poor job. Especially in the "expert analysis" area, where so many have misrepresented their credentials and experience ...
terry flores9th Jul 2010 -
RE: Group warns of blog 'content mills'
@terry flores Very well said.
KarrasB7th Aug 2010
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