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AOL Picking Up Journalists Shed By Conventional Media

Posted by timothy on from the save-us-aol-kenobi-you're-our-only-hope dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "David Weir writes on Bnet that the thousands of journalists being let go from newspapers, magazines, and television networks have increasingly been showing up on AOL's payroll — over 1,500 in the last eighteen months — a number AOL expects to double or even triple over the coming year. 'Over time, talent is a fixed cost,' says Marty Moe, Senior Vice-President of AOL Media. 'You can syndicate it, distribute it as you scale. Furthermore, we are already the largest branded content company in the US, with an audience of 75 million domestic uniques. At our size, we can leverage the cost of our publishing and content management systems along with the talent and make the whole thing do-able on an advertising model.' Weir writes that AOL's turnaround started three years ago via the acquisition of Weblogs, Inc., and its set of branded verticals, including Engadget in technology, Autoblog covering the auto industry, and Joystiq covering gaming."

6 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. I am going to kill myself by oenone.ablaze · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...now that I found out that I'm still patronizing AOL in some form. Yes, I used to have AOL. For shame.

  2. Somebody needs to pay these guys by pzs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There have been several stories on Slashdot recently about the demise of newspapers. Commentary from blogs and elsewhere is fine, but somebody needs to be gathering the primary data. If AOL are willing to pick up the slack on this, I might just start to forgive them for all those damn floppy disks in the late 90s.

    They talk about paying for it with syndication and distribution; I wonder if this model can be used to pay for proper long-term investigative journalism, the kind of stuff that is vital to democracy.

    1. Re:Somebody needs to pay these guys by pzs · · Score: 4, Funny

      My dad tried to make Christmas decorations out of the CDs. They looked hideous and cutting them out made really jagged edges that were pretty dangerous.

      I guess I could have used them like ninja throwing stars to slay the call-centre staff. "Yes, I want to cancel my fucking account!"

    2. Re:Somebody needs to pay these guys by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's funny how other industries dying during a recession is perfectly normal, but for newspapers it's TEH END.

      They've still got a good 10 years of churning out pulp before the real DEATH OF NEWSPAPERS kicks in.

      /Works for a newspaper corporation.

      //Back in the black this fiscal quarter for the first time in 18 months.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  3. Will the public demand news? by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So far, they mostly demand entertainment.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. The Big Media-of-Media Shift by chazd1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think this is pretty big news.

    It seems just like when Virgin Atlanic airlines took advantage of complacent and poorly managed (at the top) Pan Am Airlines and cherry picted talent. Look who is around now. I think we may finally be seeing the shift in media from print to web for newspapers. It is a big ship and it takes time. Industries reinvent themselves, sometimes as other companies.