Tim Sprinkle

Citizen Journalism: Another Look

Returning to the discussion of citizen journalism from last week, PBS' Mediashift on Monday began an interesting series exploring the growing business of "content farms."

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.

Jason Fry took the debate a step further, arguing that the real victims of the content farm model are not journalists (who are simply falling victim to the law of supply and demand) but Internet users, who will eventually be faced with wave after wave of less-than-quality content.

I don’t think what Demand and its ilk do is “evil” — “unfortunate” is a better word. And my concern isn’t that companies like Demand and Associated Content will drive down writers’ salaries or that the compensation built into their model is “too low,” whatever “too low” means. That’s unfortunate, sure, but it’s just the pitiless economics of supply and demand at work — there would have been some other actor if Demand had never existed. Rather, what bugs me is the quality of the stuff these companies produce, and what it does to search. (See Daniel Roth’s Wired article for a deeper exploration of that.)

I have to agree with Fry on this one. Content farms are a bummer, especially for writers just starting out, but the market for short, punchy pieces online was never a terribly lucrative one anyway, so it's not like the real pros are missing out. If these shops eliminate the $50 story market, so be it. I'm convinced that there will always be outlets for thoughtful, well-researched journalism, even online.