Innovation in News: The Facebook Google Method
March 17, 2021
I read “Daily Telegraph Plans to Link Journalists’ Pay with Article Popularity.” The idea of a feedback loop is a proven money maker. A person clicks on content he or she likes. The system notes the clicks and provides more content on point with what the user clicked on. Round and round the loop the user goes. Whee. What fun!
Now the concept has been applied to “real” journalists. Write something that gets clicks or is popular. The “real news organization” counts the clicks and eject money for those clicks. Whee. What fun!
According to the write up:
An email sent by the editor, Chris Evans, last Thursday told staff that “in due course” the outlet wants to use the “Stars” system, which scores stories published online according to factors such as how many subscriptions they drive and how many clicks they get, “to link performance to reward” using subscription data. Evans said: “It seems only right that those who attract and retain the most subscribers should be the most handsomely paid,” and noted that working out the details would be “complicated” so that “we’re not ready to do that … yet”.
Old timers who do their reporting by calling public school mates or hanging out in pubs now have to put their trembling fingers on the pulse of those who read “real news.”
That may be a challenge. Thumbtypers are different from news consumers of yore.
Here’s a thought. The Daily Telegraph can recruit more agile reporters from the ranks of TikTok phenoms.
Can these next-gen reporters write? Sure, but the clicks count now, not the pyramid structure, savvy references, and sharp quotations.
Stephen E Arnold, March 17, 2021
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