Reporters? Customers? Is There A Difference?

from the who-gets-more-value dept

When you're dealing with information, it isn't always clear who should be paying for what. There is often a question of who is getting more value. Is the information valuable by itself, or is it promotional? I remember this question coming up early on during the "boom" years, when places like AOL realized that there was no need for them to pay for certain content. Those content providers should, instead be paying them for the privilege (and publicity) of being included in AOL's system. It appears that FoxSports may be noticing a similar "shift" in values. There's a debate going on at Romenesko's site (found via Dan Gillmor) about the fact that FoxSports.com is getting fans to pay them to be columnists for certain sporting events. In fact, they're auctioning the experience off on eBay. Gillmor points out that when the San Jose Merc sells space, they usually call it "advertising". The original letter on the topic points out that FoxSports.com recently fired all their regular writers, and wonders if they're replacing their professional writers with fans who want to pay for the privilege of being a writer for FoxSports.com. Certainly raises some interesting questions - though, I don't think it's as big a deal as some people are making it out to be. It doesn't look like they're really "replacing journalists", but are creating a promotion that some fans would enjoy. As long as the winner is clearly labeled as having bought the experience, it doesn't sound that bad. The fear that this is the "future of journalism" seems a bit far-fetched. Having a newspaper or magazine where all the content is bought by the content providers doesn't make for good reading, and loses its value pretty quickly. Once it's lost its value for readers, the point of paying to be in it goes away as well.