Bloom's Day

Traffic Whoring and the Newsroom

Actually, this “traffic whoring” strategy by Gawker sounds a lot like what the Wall Street Journal (and to a lesser extent, Bloomberg) have done in old-school fashion for a long time, though just not necessarily online. Reporters long cycled on and off breaking-news duty on a several-week basis. When they were on call, they’d jump on whatever was hitting. When they were off, they were given the time to pursue longer-form pieces that might turn into the delightful Column 1 stories the paper is famous for. I agree there’s an opportunity here for the maturing online news business. How it manifests at any given company will be interesting to watch.

shortformblog:

futurejournalismproject:

A fascinating look at Gawker’s newsroom by Nieman Lab’s Andrew Phelps.

In particular, the results of an experiment in which each staff writer spends one day a week on “traffic-whoring duty” while the rest pursue in-depth articles.

Gawker editor AJ Daulerio explained the experiment back in January:

This week, the writers of this site have all agreed to participate in an obnoxious, but worthwhile exercise. Each day, a different staff writer will be forced to break their usual routine and offer up posts they feel would garner the most traffic. While that writer struggles to find dancing cat videos and Burger King bathroom fights or any other post they feel will add those precious, precious new eyeballs, the rest of the staff will spend time on more substantive stories they may have neglected due to the rigors of scouring the internet each day to hit some imaginary quota. The writers not relegated to traffic-whoring duty will still post, just less frequently than many of them are probably used to.

Andrew Phelps, Nieman Lab. I can’t stop reading this analysis of Gawker’s editorial strategy.

Most newsrooms will probably do this in five years, but they’ll give it a slightly less edgy name.

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   This week, the writers of this site have all agreed to participate in an obnoxious, but worthwhile exercise. Each day, a...

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    I never really watch videos...laughing babies, or read articles about Whitney Houston’s...

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    My favorite quote: “That interplay of short-and-long, cheap-and-expensive, aggregated-and-original is something lots of...

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    Actually, this “traffic whoring” strategy by Gawker sounds a lot like what the Wall Street Journal (and to a lesser...

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    This is great stuff. We’re having this same debate in our newsroom.

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    Wait you mean the entire Gawker newsroom isn’t devoted to traffic whoring 24/7?

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    Just as I re-settle into...new dissertation idea and start sweating for material, here...

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41. shortformblog reblogged this from futurejournalismproject and added:

    Most newsrooms will probably do this in five years, but they’ll give it a slightly less edgy name.

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