Adam Glenn of I, Reporter alluded to citizen journalism's threat to freelance journalists in a BBC Radio interview this week, and an Accuracy in Media article published Tuesday gives a real-life example from Roanoke, Virginia:
Brian Gottstein, a former online columnist for the Roanoke Times, told AIM that he along with 6 other columnists were dismissed from the newspaper, which is focusing on a more "blog-driven" approach. Gottstein said all the columnists who were cut were contract columnists and included "mainly the web-only commentators on life, religion and politics." The letter of dismissal, obtained by AIM states that "Interactivity and timeliness are the [sic] prevalent on the Internet today. That's why you hear so much about blogs…We've decided we need more of that at Roanoke.com. To that end, we're planning to change our model toward an interactive, blog-driven approach and away from the more formal single column format." ... The newspaper suggested the columnists could start up their own unaffiliated blogs and the paper would link to them, but they would no longer be paid by the newspaper.
Glenn, interviewed on BBC Radio's Up All Night, said:
I've gotten emails from fellow freelancers, who say, "We already get paid so little, and now newspapers are going to be getting their content for free."
The Roanoke Times, which maintains a columnists page, now also features a page listing Southwest Virginia bloggers.
Accuracy in Media writer Sherrie Gossett and former Roanoke Times columnist Gottstein question whether the newspaper site will be able to maintain an acceptable level of quality with the new model. Gossett asks, "(A)re newspapers confusing the influence of a handful of well-written and entertaining blogs and the cumulative power of the distributed model with the age-old popularity of starting up your own (online) diary?"
It's a legitimate question, and it depends on what the paper does with the bloggers. Slapping together a list of local blogs has value, but it isn't enough. The Roanoke Times may know that and have bigger plans. What they could do is feature the best posts by the independent bloggers in print and on the Times' Roanoke.com, and pay those freelancers for those posts.
The problem for freelancers is the gap between the time when publications cut them off and figure out a payment model that keeps everyone happy.
That raises a question for me: Is there a web site that acts as a clearinghouse for freelancers and bloggers, listing sites that will pay authors per post?
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