SEEN & HEARD ON A RECENT BLOG read by hundreds of OS readers:
Advertising inserted into blogs? What if we don't endorse said product[s]? WTF? ARE YOU SERIOUS?
My honest response, and apparently my mistake:
Sorry, friends. As a long-time journalist who's always had to share my word space with advertisers, this just doesn't bother me in the least. If OS fails to vet objectionable ads, then I have a problem. Define objectionable, you say? Anything overly political masked as editorial, anything even mildly racist or sexist, anything illegal. Outside that, friends, welcome to the world of writing - going back more than 100 years.
This did not sit well with some:
~ And for the journalist who said "Welcome to the world of writing", thing is: you were getting paid for your pieces (I'm guessing.) This isn't your average writer/advertiser dynamic here. This is different. We're not making any money for our writing. Others will be but we won't. There's some choice involved in the old paradigm.
~ I'm particularly thrown by Lisa Romero's comment. As a "long-time journalist" I can understand that she is accustomed to sharing space with advertising. Me, too. But working journalists GET PAID for the words that are sitting there next to those revenue-generating ads.
My response:
Look, friends - here's my view....
If you are writing here, then you ARE a journalist. Period. Public writing + public reading = journalism. Pure and simple.
Please accept my commentary as a genuine compliment - one that recognizes your extraordinary talents and my long-time connection to many of you, and that acknowledges NONE of us is getting rich here - but neither should we ignore the fact that, for journalistic history as far as anyone can remember, when you publish you accept the terms of the publisher.
Understandably, many of you are unhappy. You are artists. It is the nature of artists to rail against the machine. I admire that. I do.
Just please remember - this too shall pass. Ads on your blog simply means more people are reading - that there's a viable market for your writing.
Ignore it as you can.
Practice your craft.
Share your views - and thank a forum like OS for giving us the ability to do so in an affordable, high-profile way that gives us as much exposure as damn near any other public blogging site I've ever run across.
Apologies if my frank opinion offended. I only meant to say it's going to be OK. You're experiencing what every journalist has felt.
That's how I know each of you is a journalist in your own right.
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Left Is Right
C Berg
Ian Curtis
David Sirota
Patrick McEvoy-Halston
Kathy Riordan
Salon.com
Comments
Whatever.
I'm feeling particularly bitchy about this whole thing. Sorry.
I still feel fine.
This is not an artist commune. Hell, half the time I feel bad for the paid journalists on Salon.com who have to compete with our egotistical ramblings.... I confess, I barely look there anymore. (Note to Kerry and Joan - can we put a Salon.com button higher on the page than the bottom of the page to remind us of our roots?)
Advertise away!! I'm still writing what I like... it hasn't changed anything, really.
Seriously, I welcome any revenue generated by these annoying ads. I'll continue to hang out and write here. It's understandable that some are offended and want to leave. To me, it doesn't change the dynamic we have here.
OK - well, my point is you're probably glancing and ignoring, glancing and ignoring, glancing and OH! ... Hey, that ad's interesting, let's move on, read read. Then back to glancing and ignoring.
And so it is with this venue. There's nothing dreadful or ridiculous or heinous or criminal about it.
If you're a writer (and you all know you are), then all I'm saying is welcome to my world. I feel no cheaper for the tangential alliance with advertising publishers have made against my will all these years.
I just discovered it yesterday, and don't know how to use it yet, but if it works, we shouldn't have a problem.
For nine months now, I've had a friendly, active and loyal forum here at OS. I get to read tons of great writing without paying a cent for it. I have an audience. I'd like this forum to survive. I think the steps OS has taken have been taken in good faith, and if I can help them, and me, out by hosting a few ads, I'm willing to do so.
(Not that I expect to actually make any money. I mostly enabled the ads because I figured it would do OS some good.)
I understand that some readers absolutely don't want to see this stuff, but I think that in the overall, we have to understand that the "free for everybody all the time" model of the internet is inevitably going to evolve into something that involves somebody, somewhere, making money, or at least breaking even. And if this translates into a tiny bit of revenue for us, the writers (who have been doing this all along for free anyway; what does this change?), it's ok by me.
I trust Open Salon. That's what it comes down to. I trust them to make decisions that are to all of our benefit. I think the assumption that someone is trying to take us for a ride here, or profit from our slave labour (as opposed to engaging us in a mutually beneficial relationship) is incredibly cynical. I wouldn't place this trust in everyone - I'm not naturally trusting at the best of times - but I'm going to take a leap here.
And if anyone would like to continue to follow my blog ad-free, I'm still keeping it at WordPress and no one is paying or earning a cent.
http://siobhancurious.wordpress.com/
I'm going to cross-post this comment, but I wanted to leave it here as well, to support your position on all this. Thanks for your clear-headed view.
Maybe I'm overly sensitive about having all these sexual abuse ads on my blog, when I've never written anything remotely related to sexual abuse, no one else seems to be afflicted by the same problem, and I can't figure out how to turn it all off. It's making me unhappy.
On the plus side, I've earned 53 cents already today.
After all, THAT'S human nature. :-D
Oh, I thumbed this. Thought you oughtta know.
I was getting actual checks on Blogger until I started writing here within a fun community of smart people under the umbrella of a smart organization. Glad to have ads again so I can get the best of both worlds.
Write on, calm heads. :)
Imagine: We are constructively ARGUING for or against the new paradigm for publishing. Friends, we stand on the cusp of communications history. There will be a time, when we are old and grey, when we'll look back and think how antiquated or quaint this technology was (think: AOL chat rooms in the '90s, which were an explosive phenomenon in their day).
How we communicate with each other about our thoughts, hopes, dreams is a relatively new conversation if you think about it.... Twenty years ago, the public had few alternatives - and largely left the communicating to professionals, or shared their views in written letters.
That we're arguing at ALL demonstrates the tectonic shift in modern communications - far, far beyond the "medium is the message."
At the paper, the ads belong to the paper. On my blog (with my name on it) that I have links to throughout the web, I'm the one associated with the ads.
oh yeah, and nobody's making any real money from this internet advertising thing anyway... it's like grasping at strands