Media and Money

Kirstie Zontini
kz205107@ohio.edu

Money Makers

Money makes the world go round and for media outlets it can also tarnish their reputations. Media websites are blurring the lines between advertisements and content. Their sites are receiving money for part of commerce sold and that is making it hard to decide whether the news organization is being biased. If I was a news website and wanted to write about iPads, I could do so and then link to Apple's web page.

Things get a little sketchy though if, after you read my review, you learn that I got a part of the sales from the traffic my link caused. Well that is a common problem facing the new world of news websites and pressure to bring in money. The article did a great job explaining different ways that media sites and their advertisers are getting a little too close for comfort. Sponsored editing, which allows an advertiser to underwrite an article, equity stakes, which is when business publications write about other units in the big conglomerate they are owned by, running misleading ads that look like editorials, and transaction fees, which allow media sites to get a piece of their e-commerce, all make things look a little fuzzy.

Speedy

We are taught that it takes one boring sentence, piece of video, or soundbite for a person to change the channel and with the Internet it takes even less to click on something else. The Internet has opened the doors for quick bursts of information to be published which is a good and bad thing. Most new sites are Tweeting or updating and posting information online before we as journalists finish our job. If there is a car chase or severe weather it is helpful and interesting to quickly post and continually update, but that shouldn't apply to every story. The article made a good point at the end when it said, "The damage has been done." Posting a story, getting both sides, then correcting your mistakes is a good idea in theory, but how many readers will actually check back to see the corrections?


Tradition

The survey we read for class was really very interesting. The people surveyed held close the traditional news model and adapted to new media without throwing everything out the window. Some responses were negative when it came to citizen journalism practices. This made me think of CNN's iReport page. Should we really give untrained people such power to deliver content? Around two thirds of the changes cited by the people surveyed were negative. But still there were mixed reviews. It is rare that something new is taken with open arms, so maybe this hesitation is normal. Normal or not, the readings pointed out that change is happening and since it's on the World Wide Web, it's happening fast! New rules and standards need to get set now before bad habits form.