"More readers are better than fewer, of course. But those referring links -- while essential to our current business model -- aren't doing much, ultimately, to stop our potential slide into layoffs and further contraction."
Not financially helping--arguable in itself--the Washington post is not equal to financially hindering it.
"Worse, some media experts believe that Gawker and its ilk, with their relatively low overhead, might be depressing online ad revenue across the board. That makes it harder for news-gathering operations to recoup their expenses."
This is simply conjecture--a shame since this is the crux of his argument. I could equally say Gawker may be giving the WP article more page hits (something he admits), and thus revenue, and certainly more general public exposure. And in return for this service, Gawker gets ad revenue itself.
After these two weak points he then goes on to ask how we can save newspapers from online blogs and non-newspaper news sites, without proving these are hindering newspapers.
This whole argument seems very similar to the music industry's argument that online piracy is destroying music. Studies have shown, however, that piracy can actually increase music sales. And so it's not clear cut that blogging and non-newspaper news sites are hindering traditional newspapers.
We need to prove blogs and non-newspaper new sites are causing newspapers' decline before moving on to ask how we should stop these menaces to traditional newspapers.
"More readers are better than fewer, of course. But those referring links -- while essential to our current business model -- aren't doing much, ultimately, to stop our potential slide into layoffs and further contraction."
Not financially helping--arguable in itself--the Washington post is not equal to financially hindering it.
"Worse, some media experts believe that Gawker and its ilk, with their relatively low overhead, might be depressing online ad revenue across the board. That makes it harder for news-gathering operations to recoup their expenses."
This is simply conjecture--a shame since this is the crux of his argument. I could equally say Gawker may be giving the WP article more page hits (something he admits), and thus revenue, and certainly more general public exposure. And in return for this service, Gawker gets ad revenue itself.
After these two weak points he then goes on to ask how we can save newspapers from online blogs and non-newspaper news sites, without proving these are hindering newspapers.
This whole argument seems very similar to the music industry's argument that online piracy is destroying music. Studies have shown, however, that piracy can actually increase music sales. And so it's not clear cut that blogging and non-newspaper news sites are hindering traditional newspapers.
We need to prove blogs and non-newspaper new sites are causing newspapers' decline before moving on to ask how we should stop these menaces to traditional newspapers.