Comments on: Does Paying Sources Even Work?

By: jfruh

jfruh — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:08:01 +0000

I am pointlessly posting hours later here, but for the record, the most recent version of the NY Times story on this sordid event did in fact cite the Gawker report, though they put it thus: "In another twist to the case, the gossip site Gawker paid a 25-year-old Denver man, Robert Thomas, to write about his experience working with Mr. Heene…" In other words, they managed to frame it as if Heene were a writer, rather than a source, which is, I guess, Gawker's preferred framing as well.

By: missdelite

missdelite — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:55:02 +0000

Ah..pageviews. The gift that keeps on giving.
No one's checkin' out LL in a dusty Aug. issue of US Weekly.

By: Baboleen

Baboleen — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:46:05 +0000

You can take comfort knowing that as Lindsay Lohan went down in flames, you didn't help fan them.

By: Abe Sauer

Abe Sauer — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:40:29 +0000

Ringing endorsement! I spent a week on my last thing and it probably didn't get hat many pageviews. Guess I'm a sucker.

By: narnio

narnio — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:23:49 +0000

Generally CTR is just an indicator of campaign performance. Thus, the editorial would have no bearing on the total revenue. Like none. What's more, if the Ad team didn't/doesn't have a significant campaign up and running for the duration of those 400k page views (and they didn't!), then everyone loses.

By: Fredrick

Fredrick — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:44:35 +0000

I thought it was the other way around, re marriage…

By: Abe Sauer

Abe Sauer — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:34:32 +0000

CPM = Cost Per 10,000 page views. so a $10 CPM…
Also, usually click throughs are not part of the deal any more than paying based on a neilson rating guarantees somebody will go out and buy anything. So, simply, the more page view the more $$$$. THOUGH, if you produce zero click throughs an advertiser might be loathe to advertise with you again, so….

By: Moff

Moff — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:10:35 +0000

Yes, my understanding is that pageviews are akin to ratings or circulation numbers.

What I don't know anything about, and am curious about, is how click-throughs affect rates. Do sites that host ads promise a certain number of click-throughs? And how many people do click through ads?

By: hockeymom

hockeymom — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:58:36 +0000

Also, why is Pareene still at Gawker? Shouldn't he be at The Awl, back at Wonkette or somewhere else?

By: hockeymom

hockeymom — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:57:18 +0000

This is really basic, but I'm an old. How do page views turn into actual $$$ for the website or advertisers? Are pageviews akin to ratings? And you base your ad rates on your pageviews? Or, is there some way to quantify that a certain number of page views, equals a certain number of dollars being spent at American Apparel?

And how is any of this different than me, years ago, meeting a junkie source at a fast food joint, buying him a burger and coffee and getting a story?

By: iplaudius

iplaudius — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:00:07 +0000

The internet is ultimately responsible for the decline in journalistic integrity. Also, heterosexual marriages fail increasingly due to gays.

By: Abe Sauer

Abe Sauer — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:48:28 +0000

What about the source that is paid to never disclose at all; exclusivity bought, as one might say, in perpetuity?

By: brent_cox

brent_cox — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:43:49 +0000

Yes but, what about the hypothetical source with newsy info who will not disclose because no one will meet a minimum price? Compensation and veracity are not intrinsically arm's-length.

By: Baboleen

Baboleen — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:39:22 +0000

Add parenthesis.

By: iplaudius

iplaudius — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:38:55 +0000

The MSM reported unpaid sources telling lies. Gawker reported a paid source telling the truth.

As a reader, I don't care whether the source is paid for his time and trouble. I just care whether he is telling the truth.

By: Baboleen

Baboleen — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:38:21 +0000

As a bystander to the industry's system (or lack thereof, it is facinating to see a paradigm unfold.

By: fek

fek — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:33:54 +0000

I can only speak for myself, but I don't think any of the writers at Gawker are concerned with getting on the cover of any magazine, unless we can get airbrushed. Heavily. I'm pretty sure they know exactly where they're going with whatever reputation they're cultivating, and it's always going to have aspersions cast on it by media folk who think it owes them something because they were once loyal to it (this was the case three years ago, too). It's like the band that starts playing gigs at the bar, and then they move onto the club, and so on. Who's the brand suffering to? Its old audience? Traffic's fine. Then again, I don't see concerts at the Garden for a reason.

All that said, as a contributing mathematician to this site, a good number to put in perspective on all of this: Lindsay Lohan's Bodega BlackBerry Brouhaha. A day-old gossip item turned into a gallery with a ridiculous name. 84,711 hits right now. Cost nothing. Took thirty minutes.

http://gawker.com/5343385/lindsay-lohans-little-italy-blackberry-bodega-brouhaha/gallery/

Thrifty!

By: Moff

Moff — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:29:13 +0000

Is it? I mean, they're back to paying freelance contributors, and aren't pageviews back up? Writers and a minority of readers tend to complain about content quality, but owners instinctively understand that it's much less relevant than we producers of it would like to believe.

By: Abe Sauer

Abe Sauer — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:25:28 +0000

Very true. But I bet Mr. Throat wouldn't have sold to US Weekly for $90,000. Vanity Fair got him for $10K because it maintained a rep. as a place a person of his (story's) stature would want to see said story.

By: Abe Sauer

Abe Sauer — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:22:09 +0000

No. He's not (primarily anyway). But I think that will lead to diminishing returns when it comes to cultivating and keeping real talent. Without good, creative writers (who are/were themselves part journalists) what does Gawker offer than any site cannot replicate? Gawker likes to run pieces on how bullshit branding is. And a lot of it is. But it's not totally bullshit and Gawker's brand is suffering.

By: ryantate

ryantate — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:16:30 +0000

Hard to beat the excellent deal Vanity Fair got on its Deep Throat exclusive. $10k is pretty much a bargain for something like that.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1069062-2,00.html

By: Moff

Moff — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:15:56 +0000

"May not always be financially sensible."

By: Moff

Moff — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:15:05 +0000

But (1) Denton is not concerned with his writers' chances of getting on the cover of the NYT mag (and rare is the owner who would be), and (2) how much longer is that small point going to matter anyway?

Where this becomes interesting is looking at it as the next version of the whole â€œâ€˜realâ€™ journalists vs. bloggersâ€ thing. If the Internet has taken information movement out of the hands of the old-media news institutions, why should new-media institutions expect things to go differently for them? It may not also be financially sensible, but why shouldn't a source expect to get paid for providing news, the same way a blogger or a newspaper reporter gets paid for providing news? The demarcations start to break down here, too.

By: phlox

phlox — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:06:55 +0000

To be fair, more than half of Belonski's pageviews were from commenters complaining about his poor spelling and grammar.

By: Abe Sauer

Abe Sauer — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:04:44 +0000

OMG. This topic. One must also mention (as Biz Insider pointed out) that part of the exclsive story deal was also 48 hours of silence from the seller. There is also the matter of reputation (which is hard to out a $ value on) for all those writers you mention whose own editorial reputation, with both sources and readers, takes a permanent hit thanks to that taken by the overall publication (i.e. Gawker on your resume now is closer to TMZ than the "Spy" it once was) which is all fine because it doesn't hurt employment opportunities but I bet it decreases your chances of ever getting on the cover of NYT Mag.