MISCmedia by Clark Humphrey » Blog Archive MACARTHUR'S REMARK IS MELTING IN THE DARKâ€¦

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MACARTHUR’S REMARK IS MELTING IN THE DARKâ€¦

March 15th, 2012 by Clark Humphrey

Harper’s Magazine publisher/subsidizer John R. MacArthur has always kept his mag’s online version behind a paywall.

In a recent speech at Columbia University, transcribed at the Providence Journal’s site, MacArthur insists that Harper’s is making more money this way than it would if all the content were free and management scratched n’ scrambled to somehow sell enough web ads.

But he doesn’t stop there.

In the speech, he accuses “Internet con men” (i.e., the dot-com and Web 2.0 propagandists and evangelists) of “ravaging” publishing.

He denounces “Internet huckster/philosophers” as “first cousinsâ€”in both their ideology and their sales tacticsâ€”to the present-day promoters of “free trade.” Just as unfettered imports destroy working-class communities through low-wage outsourcing, MacArthur avows, so has the Internet driven writers, artists, and editors “into penury by Internet wagesâ€”in most cases, no wages.”

With web ads incapable of supporting living wages for content makers, MacArthur insists online readers will have to learn to pay “if they want to see anything more complex than a blog, a classified ad or a sex act.”

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Immediately, defenders of online business-as-usual stepped up to denounce MacArthur’s remarks.

Some, like Mike Masnick at TechDirt, settled for simplistic name-calling. MacArthur, Masnick insists, represents the “Platonic ideal specimen of the ‘I’m an old fogey elitist Internet Luddite.'” Masnick’s “rebuttal” piece goes on to call MacArthur at least 20 more varieties of out-of-it, while not bothering to actually rebut any of his points.

(OK, Mesnick does counter MacArthur’s claim that freelancers are being forced into poverty by online freebie sites, by citing a single example of one writer who says he’s offered more work than he can take.)

A more lucid response comes from Alexis Madrigal at Harper’s age-old arch rival The Atlantic (which not only has a free website but posts a lot of web-only material). Madrigal insists his mag’s “doing just fine thank you,” with equal amounts of print and web ad revenue.

Madrigal and Mensick both assert infinite, if intangible, benefits to having one’s writing part of the “open web” where it can be linked to, commented upon, and become part of the big meta-conversation.

But does that have to come at the expense of adequate research, thorough editing, and living wages for writers/editors?

And does everything really have to be on the open web?

If MacArthur wants to keep his paywall up, and if he believes his little nonprofit highbrow mag can support itself better that way, let him.

The old fogey might actually be on to something.

2 Responses

Ries writes:
March 16th, 201210:18 amat

While I totally understand your perfectly reasonable desire to make a living, I think the problem goes a bit deeper than just the fact that writers arent making any money these days, and is more systemic than just the internet.
NOBODY is making a decent living these days- most american wages have been static for 30 years.
Welders, or shop clerks, chefs, factory workers- we have seen a shifting of wealth, and of salaries, in the USA that affects everybody.

Until that changes, writers, just like artists and musicians and many other creative people, are basically screwed.

I do know people who make money on the internet- but they are using their internet writing as one component of a bigger business, often selling other forms of content as well, and using the internet to promote real world jobs.

What the internet does allow is niche marketing to a world market- in days past, a magazine like Lucky Peach, which does pay at least a couple of editors and staffers, would have been impossible- but now, with worldwide audiences who find out about it online, it can exist.
There are a variety of other, similar, paper magazines out there, which can reach and find paying subscribers because of the internet, and which do not post all of their content online.
Wire, the music magazine from England, for example. But I get lots of trade mags, for various trades, which are similar- real, paid writers, and real, physical distribution. It can still work, just not competing with US Today.

I wonder if websites like Global Guerillas make the author a living? Because there are certainly a fair amount of sites out there that are more than “blogs”, and do contain original journalism and writing. Again, they are not mass market, but they certainly exist. There is a huge middle ground between the anguished poet wanna be who attends Shoreline, with a blog, and Huffpost. And a lot of it is original, worth reading, and somehow continues.

Me, like you- I could use a job.
Clark Humphrey writes:
March 16th, 201212:02 pmat

What’s more, my previous “future of news” piece talked about how to fund professional local journalism, not global niche stuff. This includes the “boring but important” (to borrow a title from The Week magazine) beats, like the County Council and such. That can be even more problematic, support-wise, than the types of material Mr. MacArthur and his critics are talking about.