Publishers Can Not Pay Journalists for Traffic

The other day, I was reading an article in Digiday about certain publishers such as Forbes and Gawker, and brands for that matter, paying their writers based on the traffic their articles bring in or the number of new Twitter followers they accumulate. Can we put a stop to this right now?

As a former journalist and current blogger, I will be the first to admit that our profession has been lucky in the fact that we have never been paid based on results. Traders are based on the money they gain. Real estate brokers move up in the world based on the number and size of the deals they close. Teachers are retained based on the test results of their students. Journalists, whether their stories are read or not, are kept around as long as they produce good quality content.

Now, publishers are making a change and paying their writers based on the traffic they bring in. After all, the quality of a story can only be judged by the number of people who read it. However, the very premise of this tactic violates some of the basic rules of journalism.

First and foremost, journalists write for the community they serve. When they start to get paid based on traffic, the obligation moves from community to the owner or CEO of the publication/brand. If journalists start to get paid based on readership, no matter what the story is or how relevant it is to the community, every writer will have to ask themselves if this is a story the owner or editor would want to publish or will it bring in additional readers. Writers can not and should not be worrying this.

Quote color and paraphrase fact. It is a statement every journalism graduate has heard. But once these same journalists start to get paid based on readership, this rule in the back of their head will change. Even if you get your source to quote something every paper would love to hear, the writer will once again go back in his head and ask themselves if this is the quote that will bring in additional readers. Even worse, what if the writer is having a bad week and all of a sudden, he gets a source to admit to something wrong. However, it still isn’t juicy enough. If the writer’s salary is based on viewership, what are the odds the writer changes up that quote? We like to think this never happens, but we all know it does. If we move to this new system, we know how prevalent this could become. 

Once again, writers have gotten off easy by not being paid based on results. Offering more money for additional traffic is great motivation to get better stories, better sources and better quotes. Nonetheless, the negatives far outweigh the positives. Honest and ethical journalism, as we know it, will die if more publishers start to pay their writers based on traffic.