When I first started this website I didn’t have a plan for monetization. While I certainly believe people should be compensated for hard, useful work, all I wanted to do was read, write and think. The “business side” of running a blog felt like a nuisance and wasn’t something I had much passion or energy for. That hasn’t changed.
What has changed is passively putting third party code like Google Adsense on your website doesn’t really earn someone like me any money. While it was never a significant amount of cash in the first place, it wasn’t totally worthless. At this point it has become basically worthless, but that’s ok. I’m not going to complain about Google. Google doesn’t owe me anything and neither do the corporations that use the network. It was never a smart way for writers, particularly anti-establishment type writers highly critical of our economic system based on cronyism and fraud, to earn money. It never really made any sense, but I went down that road anyway because it was easy and allowed me to focus on what I really cared about, my work. But things have changed.
Advertisers have begun to flex their muscles over the past year or so, with YouTube demonetizing videos with any sort of unconventional political bent. From the advertisers’ perspective this makes perfect sense and there’s no point in complaining about it. This has forced many content producers to shift to a more reader supported model, which I think is far more empowering and healthy in the long-term despite painful short-term hits to revenue. Indeed, we shouldn’t trust any media that relies on large corporate advertisers to fund their “journalism,” as the product will be more like public relations than any hard-hitting truth to power. We’ve already seen that advertisers are willing to flex their muscles when it comes to content they don’t like, and we can expect that to accelerate going forward.
The latest warning sign comes courtesy of a Washington Post policy that forbids employees from disparaging advertisers. The Washingtonian reports:
A new social-media policy at the Washington Post prohibits conduct on social media that “adversely affects The Post’s customers, advertisers, subscribers, vendors, suppliers or partners.” In such cases, Post management reserves the right to take disciplinary action “up to and including termination of employment.”
The Post‘s Guild sent out a bulletin Sunday night protesting the policy. “If you’re like most of us, you probably acknowledged its receipt without reading it,” says the note, which was written by Guild co-chair Fredrick Kunkle. “But what you don’t know could hurt you.”
The guild wants to jettison other parts of the policy, which the Post confirms to Washingtonian went into effect on May 1 and applies to the entire company:
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A provision that prohibits employees from “Disparaging the products and services of The Post’s advertisers, subscribers, competitors, business partners or vendors.”
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A demand that employees “Refrain from using social media while on your work time, unless using Social Media is an authorized part of your job.”
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A clause that encourages employees to snitch on one another: “If you have any reason to believe that an employee may be in violation of The Post’s Social Media Policy … you should contact the Post’s Human Resources Department.”
I thought part of the appeal of a billionaire like Jeff Bezos owning a “paper of record” is that it might make it less beholden to large powerful interests than you might otherwise expect. Guess not.
One thing the last twelve months should make clear to everyone reading this is that billionaire-owned corporate media cannot and should not be trusted to provide honest information, and will definitely never challenge the true centers of power in society. This makes the need for independent publishers more crucial than ever, and since such publishers cannot and should not depend on corporate advertisers, readers need to step up and support them. I’m not talking about my work specifically, I’m talking about all of the independent content creators you enjoy. Support all of them.
On Friday, I plan to publish an article outlining my plan for turning Liberty Blitzkrieg into a reader-supported publication in the years ahead. I think that’s the only sustainable way to stay on point, refrain from the temptations of clickbait, and avoid the whims of corporate advertisers and Google.
Stay tuned for more.
Meanwhile, if you enjoyed this post, and want to contribute to genuine, independent media, consider visiting our Support Page.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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La Follette termed advertising “a subtle new peril,” and he informed journalists that it would “in time seek to gag you.”
“It is the big advertiser,”
William Salisbury, a prominent journalist, concluded, “who is the gold-sceptered king of American journalism—the king who can do no wrong.”*
Sinclair, too, more than any previous press critic, zeroes in on advertising and its ignominious implications for a free press. “Everywhere in the world of Journalism, high and low, you see this power of the advertiser,” he writes. “This system of publicity in return for advertising is a fundamentally dishonest one, but it is inseparable from the business of publishing news for profit, and the legitimate and the illegitimate shade into one another so gradually that it would be hard for an honest editor to know where to draw the line”(p. 285).
Moreover, to Sinclair, the political biases of advertisers made it vastly more difficult for socialist pro-labor publications to survive in the marketplace. “For some strange reason,” he noted of a magazine that generated a large circulation but still could not generate enough revenue to break even, “the packers of hams and bacon, the manufacturers of automobiles and ready-made clothing, of toilet perfumeries and fancy cigarettes, would not pay money to a Socialist magazine!” (p. 294)
http://monthlyreview.org/2002/05/01/upton-sinclair-and-the-contradictions-of-capitalist-journalism/
The Brass Check, a study of American journalism
by Sinclair, Upton, 1878-1968
https://archive.org/details/cu31924026364251
I do not question your premise – the writing is on the wall. But I wonder how independent content creators are going to get “all the news” when the vast majority of content is vetted and limited by policies such as the WaPo policy you mention. In the end, the big money wins again. This is a concerted effort to control the narrative and get those out of line back in line. The game changed with the Internet and those in power aim to fix that. Independent content has to be worth the cost to individual subscribers and I am worried that as big money and power regains the control they lost over the the news, independent content will be constrained to the point of irrelevance.
Despite my concerns, When Bitcoin started its stratospheric rise, I decided to make Bitcoin donations to independent content creators I read. I wanted to share those Btc gains in appreciation of independent content creators, including Liberty Blitzkrieg. Just a suggestion to others: share some of those Btc gains with your favorite bloggers.
I donate to some bloggers but I’ve been avoiding ones who use Patreon. Bleeding regular payments out of a reader’s credit card, with no end limit on the debits, they call “patronage” but it’s also the “sleazy porn site” model of e-commerce. “Patrons” should have a right to make one-time payments for sites they support. Patreon does not offer that option.
I will probably be offering Patreon soon as an option because some have suggested it. However, I will keep one time donations also easily available. The more options the better.
Agreed. I’m glad to hear they don’t lock you in to using only their model. Radio War Nerd is Patreon-hosted, and it’s the only method of donating. James Howard Kunstler is self-hosted but I don’t see any other way to donate besides Patreon (or book purchases). I’ll be curious to see your plans!
Tom, have you heard that Patreon locks you in somehow? I’ve never heard that and not sure how that would work anyway.
I haven’t — my only knowledge is from the consumer end — I sent them a message via the Patreon website suggesting that they should offer one-time payments and got no reply. I hate to say it but their business model is “Silicon Valley rent seeking,” even if they have been a boon to some good writers.
Thanks, my take is that the more options the better and let the reader decide.
I use Patreon to support a handful of creatives (non-political) and it was easy enough to simply stop payment after one month.
Set up PayPal for donations. I’m more likely to donate because I already have an account.
Hi Nancy, thanks. I already have that set up, and many people have donated that way. You can find information here: https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/support-liberty-blitzkrieg/
Thanks!
So if Donald Trump places an ad in the rag of record, employees can be fired for criticizing him?!? Seems like a no brainer!
I’m not a journalist but I’m a computer programmer. I built the simplest easiest accounting system which was a free download from my website which also had Google Adsense. I was getting 600 visitors, 200 downloads around $5 per day from AdSense some years ago. Now it’s dropped to a fraction of that. About 60 visitors and about 0.05 cents per day. Of course I didn’t have the money to spend on advertising that the large corporations do and which now gets them the top rankings in Google.