Mathew's comments - Latest Comments in Truth vs. traffic: An age-old battle

Re: Truth vs. traffic: An age-old battle

Maggy Young — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:20:40 -0000

Aw come on all ! In old media, what newspaper reports don't have spin or slant & just give a plain unbiassed account of the facts as they know them, interspersed with caveats - 'we are not 100p/c sure of this' ?
They don't because they know that would make boring reading & bloggers know that there's no point in having the best blog in the sphere with no-one reading it.
So here's where 'tension' & drawing a line in the middle comes in. It isn't the product of the blogger but the product of the readers which the blogger wants to keep. Readers want quality & trustworthy blogs, but they don't want them to be boring either.

Re: Truth vs. traffic: An age-old battle

mathewi — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:07:02 -0000

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant by "tension" :-)

Re: Truth vs. traffic: An age-old battle

tonyhung — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:43:01 -0000

Indeed ... the whole principle echoes of how Business2 was rewarding journalists who were blogging based on traffic, and how that might influence what they were going to write.

Or, alternatively, Nick Denton's traffic-based renumeration formula for Gawker.

People act rationally. When you have a stake in things that are strictly based on eyeballs and attention, you obviously do things to get that attention, without trying to compromise your integrity -- too much.

Which is probably what you mean by "tension". :)

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Truth vs. traffic: An age-old battle

antje wilsch — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:39:37 -0000

Amusingly, one of our recent press releases actually got a response from a CNN Editor who said something like "love the idea overall but we're focusing on the economy right now..."

Re: Truth vs. traffic: An age-old battle

mathewi — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:31:02 -0000

It's true that thoughtful and nuanced blog posts aren't necessarily
rewarded with huge traffic, Tony, but I have to believe that over time
people will tend to gravitate towards the more trustworthy (and
perhaps thoughtful) blogs. I have to believe it because if I thought
otherwise then I might just stop writing altogether :-)

And it's interesting to note that the more newspapers and magazines
and other media move online, the more they are subject to the same
kinds of traffic-driven concerns and tensions between what they want
to cover or write about and what their server logs tell them people
want to read about.

Re: Truth vs. traffic: An age-old battle

tonyhung — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:24:25 -0000

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not comparing Mike Arrington to a tabloid or a scandal sheet or anything of the sort. I’m just saying that the quest for traffic, and the tension between that and “the truth,” is not a new one invented by the blogosphere.

No?

That's too bad because if you did, it would raise a huge stink, setting the table for another nerd fight, and it would also be the logical extension of this conversation.

:)

No, seriously. Good point. While I was thinking about Mad Cow disease earlier today (totally different topic), I kept on thinking about what all of this meant for the standards that we set for ourselves, when the drive for controversy is essentially a race towards the bottom.

Oh, sure, there's a self-correcting mechanism in place so that we need to have some kind of integrity (lest we be called out by fellow bloggers), but by its very nature blogging (and the reality of how and what people like to read on the Internet) doesn't really reward thoughtful, balanced and nuanced analysis -- if by "reward" you mean traffic.

t @ dji