Anderson, Can We Not?

I feel as though we have talked about this topic several times over the semester, but I think we can all agree that there are certain limits to free and in some cases the customer will value a product/service so much that they are willing to pay. To be frank, I’m quite tired of all these tech/media gurus telling news corps that they’re dead, dying, outdated and costly. The three articles assigned are pretty entertaining and give a good debate so I’ll follow similar suit with Anderson’s response to Gladwell’s review of “Free.”

Anderson writes:

“There may be more of them, not fewer, as the ability to participate in journalism extends beyond the credentialed halls of traditional media. But they may be paid far less, and for many it won’t be a full time job at all. Journalism as a profession will share the stage with journalism as an avocation. Meanwhile, others may use their skills to teach and organize amateurs to do a better job covering their own communities, becoming more editor/coach than writer. If so, leveraging the Free—paying people to get other people to write for non-monetary rewards—may not be the enemy of professional journalists. Instead, it may be their salvation.”

Naturally Gladwell attacked this point of view by prosing how does one get another to work for non-monetary rewards?

Nonchalantly, Anderson went into this semi-altruistic story about his friend Ken, who is a civil engineer (basically, Ken makes good money already), and got him to write for his blog GeekDad. Ken is happy. GeekDad is happy and all in all Anderson gets enough credibility to propose a new business model for the newspaper industry? Not quite. To be fair, Anderson did state:

“Is it the model for the newspaper industry? Maybe not all of it, but it is the only way I can think of to scale the economics of media down to the hyperlocal level.”

What I think Anderson fails to understand is that professional and trained journalists don’t start blogs like GeekDad to earn a living. Therefore, the economics of community blogging or responsibility doesn’t require the attention of making a business model for it. 

In fact, personal blogging is an entire profession on its own these days. I follow a couple bloggers myself, so take Sazan Hendrix for example. You can learn more about her background from this interview: http://www.contiki.com/six-two/10-contiki-questions-with-fashion-blogger-sazan-barzani/

She’s a fashion and beauty blogger, posts weekly YouTube videos and describes herself as a “young influencer.” Sazan recognized that social blogging is a business venture and it has obviously served her bank account well.

There definitely isn’t a formula to success in blogging, but she did blog about being a full-time blogger and how she has been successful. Read here: http://sazan.me/blog/2014/07/10/blogging-faqs/

In short, can we please stop trying to predict grandiose business models for the newspaper corporations and continue to let them to do their civic duty to democracy without undervaluing their work?