Maybe BuzzFeed has cracked the code for online "journalism" being profitable. But if this is the method, I feel bad for consumers.
John Oliver recently commented on this stuff (so called "Native Advertising") on Last Week Tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc
Cue a torrent of branded content and native advertising apologists.
Native advertising is to journalism what virtual casinos are to video games. I used to be an apologist for a virtual slot machine—I even wrote some code for one. But once you get out of the system, it's so obvious: virtual casinos are unequivocally bad for the gaming ecosystem.
Indeed, anything that makes its money primarily by exploiting people at the expensive of competitive creativity—like casinos or native advertising—is bad for the ecosystem.
I think many people in journalism will have to discover organically that native advertising is unequivocally bad for the non-fiction ecosystem. It will make tons of money, sure, but their integrity is worth far more.
Tell that to them when they go out of business.
Native advertising done well is actually a rising tide that lifts all boats. Regular advertising can be as crude as "Coke is awesome, buy Coke!" and no-one really wants that. Native advertising, on the other hand, could be an intricate feature about how Coke cans are made and the history of soda cans.
Would I rather have lots of screamy obnoxious ads in magazines, on TV, or on the Web.. or would I rather have well produced content that is clearly marked as being sponsor backed? The latter. And this is why it's taking off, because no-one clicks on banner ads, lots of people run ad blockers, and both media outlets and advertisers are responding by providing what readers do want and will engage with.. indeed, I predicted this years ago on Hacker News itself ;-) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3956158
Now, can native advertising be done in a shitty, underhanded way? Absolutely. But so can journalism. So can reportage. But just because some journalism is shitty and biased doesn't mean journalism is shitty, and nor is native advertising when it's done right, it's better than display advertising because people are actually likely to consume it.
There's only so many times a human can click on "Ten Amazing Things About Something Or Other That We Bet You Won't Believe" before it finally clicks in their brain that hey, wait a minute, last time I read one of these it wasn't _that_ amazing...
As long as buzzfeed have the data they can stay ahead of the curve.
If algorithms are used to write human-hostile headlines, algorithms will be used to filter human-improving content. Ask Demand Media how their Google traffic is doing post Panda algorithm updates.
Seriously, all real titles from one month picked at random.
With featured content such as "The 20 Most Australian Hashtags Ever"[1], it's nothing more than light entertainment
[1]: http://www.buzzfeed.com/smwsydney/the-20-most-australian-has...
[1]: http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/editors-note-an-apology-to-...
A major television network (eg. CBS) airs both in-depth news coverage, trashy reality shows, fictional comedies/dramas, and sports. More and better timeslots go to things other than news, those shows are advertised more, and the most successful non-news shows have more viewers than the nightly news, but the presence of those other shows doesn't mean that it's fair to say CBS doesn't do journalism.
This is such a poor attitude that totally flies in the face of history and the situation for journalists in other places in the world, like Mexico, where hundreds of reporters have been executed in the last few years. Journalism as a profession is just fine, monetizing it might not be.
In the US, the profession is not fine. The major news outlets regularly bury stories the administration finds objectionable (e.g., NY Times on the Bush surveillance). They reiterate propaganda talking points (e.g., NY Times not using the word "torture" until this week). And they generally support the overall goals of each administration (majority of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11). Washington reporters are all too happy to be part of the insiders network and scorn people who aren't (such as Glenn Greenwald).
You seem incredulous. "regularly bury stories" is quite an unsubstantiated claim and you listed one example for which I have seen no evidence that this happened and if it did that the reason was to please a White House administration. Yet you make the claim with great conviction.
As for the Iraqi War drumming, I think that was a problem the NY Times had and was largely the result of the now discredited and very much resigned Judith Miller.
The evidence for the NY Times editor burying this story is well-documented. The only reason they ever published it was because the writer was going to publish it in his own book. Quote from wikipedia: "Former NYT executive editor Bill Keller decided not to report the piece after being pressured by the Bush administration"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Delayed_publ...
Other links:
"New study documents media’s servitude to government" http://www.salon.com/2010/06/30/media_258/
"The NYT’s journalistic obedience" http://www.salon.com/2011/02/21/nyt_16/
"The War Photo No One Would Publish" http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/08/the-war-...
"Propaganda model" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
This is an interesting interpretation.
There was legal pressure from the Justice Department and an implicit threat from the Bush Administration that the New York Times could be on the hook for revealing "state secrets" and be held responsible for associated repercussions.
Whether you feel that way or not, there is some conflicted, moral debate about Snowden. It's not like the NYT didn't have and want to bust the story, but the ramifications weren't clear cut, so they delayed. I'm sure you're willing to put your professional career and perhaps freedom on the line at any time, right? In the end, the story got out, as it always tends to do.
The fact that people even use the NY Times and Buzzfeed in the same sentence, as if it's the same business, is hilarious.
I'm not sure how that's the fault of the mainstream news media, rather than an ignorant population.