Media News - Monday, June 08, 2009

New site promotes journalists as individual brands

First came bylines for once-anonymous journalists. Then came their photos, particularly as news shifted online, and blogs began to carry mug shots of their writers. Now, the journalist is about to continue that evolution from off-stage to center stage as a new Web site promotes the concept of the 'entrepreneurial journalist.' Founded by a veteran of traditional media, Lewis Dvorkin, True/Slant wants its writers to be more than just a name and a mug shot. Contributors are encouraged to think of themselves as individual brands and to build a community of readers around their writing. With True/Slant, writers combine original reporting with commentary and links to headlines from around the Web. The 100 or so writers at True/Slant - among them some bold-faced names from the traditional media such as CNN, Rolling Stone and Newsweek - are contractually obligated to engage with readers. They must flag a certain number of comments per month as noteworthy by highlighting them in their posts on the site. True/Slant's writers can also manage their comment sections, in contrast to the free-for-all, unmoderated approach that many other Web sites take. Still, the site's relationship with its stable of writers may be its most novel aspect, highlighting the kind of media fragmentation that continues as online news and debate becomes ascendant. Some writers receive monthly stipends. Others get incentive-based pay, driven by the traffic they pull onto the site. But they also have the option of sharing advertising revenue and taking an equity stake in the company. Where journalists once hoped to climb aboard an established news brand with its own weight and credibility - and steady salaries - and then forget about the business side of things, True/Slant's contributors have to build their own audience and derive a living from it. (AP)

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