Comments on: Well-paid reporters, and other fantasies http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/01/21/well-paid-reporters-and-other-fantasies/ Where media and technology meet Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:52:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Mitch Ratcliffe http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/01/21/well-paid-reporters-and-other-fantasies/comment-page-1/#comment-355539 Mitch Ratcliffe Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:22:05 +0000 http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/?p=14059#comment-355539 Robert -- glad you share the idea that reporting might be worth more than "free." My first writing jobs, for weeklies, paid 2 cents and 5 cents a word. It was years before I made a living doing it, but I've also seen the peaks of compensation and it was good, too. If we could get 3,000 independent people to $65K and operating expenses covered, it would change the news. That said, when starting to solve the problem of how to build a new business, it is critical to have a goal people want to work towards. The scenario I identify is one of an independent reporter succeeding. There is a lot of work to do to get there, but it has been done many times within the traditional media, so why not shoot for it, again? In sharp contrast, we are seeing plenty of bloggers being cajoled into writing for nothing, so that a publisher can build their business, then offer them some pay. That's how Wired built its business in the 90s, how thePrintedBlog intends to do it today. Yes, we could have publishers dictating what they will pay, or we could change it by connecting reporters directly to the market for news. Robert — glad you share the idea that reporting might be worth more than “free.” My first writing jobs, for weeklies, paid 2 cents and 5 cents a word. It was years before I made a living doing it, but I’ve also seen the peaks of compensation and it was good, too. If we could get 3,000 independent people to $65K and operating expenses covered, it would change the news.

That said, when starting to solve the problem of how to build a new business, it is critical to have a goal people want to work towards. The scenario I identify is one of an independent reporter succeeding. There is a lot of work to do to get there, but it has been done many times within the traditional media, so why not shoot for it, again?

In sharp contrast, we are seeing plenty of bloggers being cajoled into writing for nothing, so that a publisher can build their business, then offer them some pay. That’s how Wired built its business in the 90s, how thePrintedBlog intends to do it today. Yes, we could have publishers dictating what they will pay, or we could change it by connecting reporters directly to the market for news.

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