Media Costs: The Difference Between Journalism and Bloggers

One of the things that we are seeing in the news and in blogs and across every other medium is the fact that "old media" is dead and "new media" is taking over.  One of the things that is discussed is the fact that old media is dying because their revenue is going away.  Where is it going?  It is headed towards the next big thing, online media, which we refer to now as "new".  So how is the news changing?  It is changing not so much in the items being reported, but it is taking a whole new shape in how and where.  So why is new media being successful?  I have to think that one of the reasons is–costs.

An average journalist according to the graph I found at Payscale is as follows:

Now multiply that by say a staff of an average of perhaps 20 writers.  Now factor in the brick and mortar place they show up for work, and all of the departments that support that and you have quite a large infrastructure of "costs." 

When blogging fist took hold in the laste 90′s and the early part of this century, it was new and exciting and many were learning their craft at how to be a citizen reporter.  We all saw new talent rise to the top like in any business.  They learned how to monetize their talents to some degree, and we saw businesses popping up all over trying to leverage this talent and "new media".

Old Media is taking that large champagne taste and trying to fit it into a beer budget.

Today we have seen the emergence of companies like Weblogs, Inc., and b5Media and others that have taken those talented bloggers and turned them into their counterparts.  This is the new "old media" model.  The difference is in all of this is perhaps they are not charging the inordinate amount of money for advertising for one and the payment of bloggers is another issue.  Bloggers in my experience are not making near the salaries that we see above. If they are they are working at some of the places like TechCrunch and Gizmodo or other large high trafficked sites.

Deb Ng mentioned over at the Blog World Expo Blog her own take on the issues related to Old Versus New in the media realm.  She sees the difference and I make a note of it here:

In case you haven’t been at this “media” thing as long as me, here are a few comparisons:

Old Media: Pay a freelance writer $1 per word to research, interview and write up an expert article. Publish and pay six months to a year later.

New Media: Pay freelance blogger $1 per post to Google and rewrite someone else’s researched, expert article. Publish and pay on the same day.

The problem for old media companies is they are trying to put their square peg in a round hole.  Old Media is taking that large champagne taste and trying to fit it into a beer budget.  There is no way they can compete.  I wish now that bloggers would have stepped up and asked for the money that journalists were getting in their field.  It would certainly have leveled the playing field for old media.  Now we clamor for the ability to demand new salaries and more money as bloggers.  We have set the bar a little low.

Tags: New Media, Old Media, Mainstream Media, Bloggers, Blogger Pay, Blogger Salaries, Professional Blloggers, Journalists