this lady should use her insider knowledge and write an in-depth tell all on the decline and fall of journalism. if anything, she has a wonderful opportunity to blow the lid off of something very few people know about.

so hunker down, take notes, and do some good old fashioned investigative journalism.

I'm not sure how possible this is, but it would be really helpful to have some examples of websites that are doing this (maybe not the specific one(s) she works for but others like it). I just don't have a sense of the scale of this problem (is it a site like cnn.com doing this? or much less "reputable"-types of sites?).

Basically, what I want to know is, is the quality of what I, personally, am reading suffering because of practices like this? I mean, if I scan through Google News or whatever, I'm going to go to the NYT site, or the Wash. Post, or cnn.com...

Visit textbroker (dot) com. You can order any kind of article you want...for as low as a penny per word.

Who are these people that can write for a penny a word?

Of course, you get what you pay for. You might have to go as high as 5 cents a word.

Nice pedestal. We’ve all doomed the English language, al for no gud gramer or raisin . Curse you both Spellcheck and Flesch Reading Ease scale!!! Curse you both.

Can any writer climb up or is it for a Printed Knight of the Holy Order of Journalism Trades and Associated Authors?

Writers, especially newspaper writers refusing to work for less pay would be like GM workers going on strike to protest layoffs.

What is most interesting about the internet is that the people with the best content often work for free. For example the folks at Panda's Thumb or PZ over at Pharyngula produce some amazing content, but they don't get paid for it.

I think one model is where the internet is something done by writers to advertise themselves. For example Phil at Bad Astronomy has his blog, which is free, but also sells his books which he hypes up through the blog.

That and maybe a site needs to just bite the bullet and try charging for all content. I mean I would pay 10-20 bucks a month to access quality journalism so long as it was convenient (no pay per article or other annoying bullshit).

All this has happened before and it will happen again.

Thinking back to the days of the muckrakers and yellow journalism of a century ago, the pendulum had swayed over to about where it is now, really. At some point, the model of news gathering and reporting news that is emerging now (low cost, wide distribution, blogger-based) will likewise give way to some crisis or scandal, and the pendulum will sway back to the middle.

I think we just kind of have to let this phase run its course, while being vocal about objectionable activities by pseudojournalists.

When a friend passed away recently and I was interviewed by a reporter from a daily about it, there were so many things wrong in the article -- things I tried to make as clear as possible during the chat with the writer -- that it was a nightmare. I called him a chef and they called him a "foodie." I was described as a musician when everyone knows I stopped playing music long ago (I'm a publicist; hey, it's the "music scene" right?). I am quoted saying something I never said at all (I have a phone recorder for my own interviews and use it whenever I talk with mainstream press). Finally, and the most darkly humorous part of this, is when she repeated the origin story of the band the beloved deceased played for, but that was a hoax he himself had told a previous, also pretty careless reporter. She didn't bother to fact check even that, but reprinted it whole. It added a lot of "joy" to the mourning (let's see how much more horrible we can make a tragic thing) but could have been taken care of with one good fact check phone call to me, or someone in the family, or another friend. Feel free to feel even more depressed now, Brendan. BTW, great review of that China Underground book in the new issue -- you captured the author's unique charm and the unusual aspects of the work perfectly.

Academia has been monitoring this and projecting its collapse for years.

Media Studies....Communications....if you want to make money off of this, learn how to teach it and research it.

I maintain that the internet is a hall of mirrors.

@6: Thank you for putting this in historical context. I was starting to panic.

I use Slog and only Slog as my source for factual information and will continue to do so until I find something untrue in it.

As someone who works for the web arm of a national publication, I'd make the point that what your friend is talking about isn't journalism. While we of course consider reader interest in deciding what stories to do, it's by far not the only thing we look at, and we know we're going to do stories that don't get a lot of clicks in addition to ones that are catnip for the Web audience, simply because they're important stories. And we'd never consider rewriting a piece with different words or synonyms for SEO reasons.

So take heart, anonymous Friend of Brendan! There are still people who care about doing good journalism online, and there is still an audience for that stuff out there (ours, for instance). And there are still jobs for good journalists and writers out there, though most of them are probably freelance gigs.

It's all about the comics pages. And monetizing the online sports vids of hot "soccer" (football) players.

Addressing College Wins: Academia, like journalism, is in many regards a failing American institution. While we certainly do need talented writers researching important issues, like this one, and getting the word out, I think we could all do without another angry young media studies professor turned sour by the grim realities of the tenure-track spewing the predictable vitriol of academic group-think as she publishes ridiculous articles in obscure journals in order to keep her job.

@2/12: I worked for the web arm of a large national print publication and our writers endured many workshops and meetings about writing for SEO. They hated it, some left angry, others complained but it's definitely becoming a fact of life.

I almost walked out when one of the trainers suggested we "misspell commonly misspelled words or at least include them in metatags. it will help your hits on google!"

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Interesting point and very well made, it certainly gets the point across!
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