Thursday, October 27, 2005
The Shlock of the News
The Shlock of the News: "While Google delivers information based on an amalgam of its users' preferences, AOL employs old-fashioned creatures called editors.
But what AOL is doing to its editors is awful: undermining its own integrity and undercutting all journalism. More than ever, AOL is driven by advertising dollars. The more times a page is viewed, the more money it makes. As an interactive medium, it's easy for them to link specific editorial content with advertising results. 'Every time you click,' writes the AOL editor, 'our page views go up we get more ad dollars then I get promoted.'
Now, in the broadest terms this is how any medium works, from movies to magazines. More people means more revenue, and so on. But between an interactive news product that targets a narrow audience, and a printed newspaper in search of a wider one, the differences are distinctive.
Interactive writers can quickly become slaves to instant ratings; while paper journalists are buffered by the relative inefficiency of print, and protected by a long tradition of willfully ignoring a newspaper's advertising."
But what AOL is doing to its editors is awful: undermining its own integrity and undercutting all journalism. More than ever, AOL is driven by advertising dollars. The more times a page is viewed, the more money it makes. As an interactive medium, it's easy for them to link specific editorial content with advertising results. 'Every time you click,' writes the AOL editor, 'our page views go up we get more ad dollars then I get promoted.'
Now, in the broadest terms this is how any medium works, from movies to magazines. More people means more revenue, and so on. But between an interactive news product that targets a narrow audience, and a printed newspaper in search of a wider one, the differences are distinctive.
Interactive writers can quickly become slaves to instant ratings; while paper journalists are buffered by the relative inefficiency of print, and protected by a long tradition of willfully ignoring a newspaper's advertising."
