An Open Letter to Traditional Journalism: “Content Mills” Are Not to Blame for What Ails You

By Bruce Doyle, Demand Studios Review Writer

Posted On 1/26/11:

Dear Traditional Journalism,

Things have been tough lately, I get it. Your profits are falling. More and more you’re being forced out of print and solely onto the Internet, a medium you’re clearly not totally comfortable with yet and one you don’t dominate. I’d be a little irritable too if I was you.

But I think you’re looking in the wrong direction when you go after so called “content mills” as the big bad demon in the room. There are other, more accurate villains to blame for your predicament (and one of them is you).

Now, already I hear you saying, “But those darn content mills, they produce SO MUCH content, and so much of it is subpar!”

You do make a good point. There is a lot of it now, and much of it is subpar. But much of it is also exactly what the searchers are looking for: quick, bite-sized answers to common questions and concerns.

You guys love to compare content sites with fast food. Need I remind you that fast food is a multi-billion dollar industry? And come on, be honest, I’ve seen some of your waist lines. Don’t tell me you never hit the McDonald’s drive thru late at night when no one’s looking.

Sometimes a little fast food is exactly what you wanted. Is it good for you? No, of course not. But sometimes it hits the spot and is a quick solution to your problem (hunger and, perhaps, a lack of resources - funds or time/energy to mix my metaphors).

I’m a Google user too, so I feel your pain on the searcher end of all this, though I am dubious that that’s really why you raise these objections. Content sites are cropping up a bit too fervently these days. They used to fill a space not inhabited by other websites. Now they are on the first page of every other search query, and that can be annoying.

 On the other hand, this is the Internet. It has always been stuffed to the gills with crap. While defending the endless addition to that crap isn’t exactly the battlefield I want to die on, some of what you find on eHow, Associated Content, Seed and the like is actually pretty useful. If it isn’t, you can bounce away from it and go elsewhere.

Of course traffic means revenue on the Internet (or at least it is an integral part), so fewer hits on your sites means less money and no one likes that. But why are you comparing yourselves to content sites anyway?

Remember back when Jon Stewart went on Crossfire and Tucker Carlson started going after him for not being tough enough on John Kerry? This was in response to Stewart calling Crossfire out on their shoddy, sensationalist journalism. Remember how Stewart mocked Tucker for comparing his own show to one (The Daily Show) which was then followed up by puppets making crank calls (Crank Yankers)? Well, in a sense, isn’t that what you guys are doing now, in albeit less implicit terms?

Content sites have a certain job to do. They fit a certain niche. They are not journalism, nor are they trying to be journalism. AC and Seed may get close at times, but it’s am-pro, citizen journalism. You guys are playing on a totally different field.

To go back to the Crossfire example, you will also find there two better adversaries if you still want something tangible to blame: cable news networks and media sensationalism.

For one thing, who wants the old news of a newspaper when they can get up to the minute news from 24 hour cable news networks? Or from the Internet (by the way, the Internet in general is a better scapegoat as well, since you guys jumped in with both feet, gave away all your content for free and figured you could find a sustainable business model later…which didn’t totally work out, did it?).

As for sensationalism, well, that’s always been around. But cable news and the blogosphere (you can blame them too, if you want) can do pseudo fact-based sensationalism better than you guys can any day, or (up to the) minute, of the week.

Still feeling the need for some more devils to blame?

How about Craigslist? When people were able to post classified ads for free, there went a huge source of revenue. Why not form an organization to go after Craigslist, and similar free classified ad sites, like you have with content mills? Because after all, it’s just not fair! You guys were here first! How dare the young upstart information model take away what’s rightfully yours?

Again, I understand. No one likes to lose money, and no one likes three similarly worded eHow titles popping up on every other search. We all have a vested interest in a cleaner search experience. Chances are we’re going to get one soon enough from Google, and from what I hear Blekko and Bing are doing a pretty good job of it already.

But chances are also pretty good that content sites are here to stay. They may be forced to up their standards and increase freelancer pay (and I hope they do), but hearing you guys moan and complain all the time about such a non-formidable opponent is getting old.

Stick to what you are here to do: cover current invents and unraveling cover-ups, political rhetoric, lies and hidden stories the public needs to know about, and let eHow worry about giving us five different how to articles on the best methods for watering pear trees.

Otherwise, don’t be surprised when WikiLeaks and their clones start stealing more of your traffic than content mills could ever dream of taking.

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