Just a month ago, AmericaBlog’s John Aravosis convinced his readers to give him $20,000 to work on his website.
The DC beltway blogger’s response to the people who correspond with him? You bore me:
There’s been a marked recent increase in the number of people asking me to write about their organization, campaign, or client. Whether it’s a non-profit with some new-fangled incredibly-esoteric project, a politician promoting their latest highly-interesting-to-them but-kind-of-boring-to-you policy proposal, or a public relations firm being paid big bucks to push the lame ideas of yet another client, the volume of “give me free publicity” requests has skyrocketed of late… And the notion that I’m going to do you a favor by writing about a non-story, when you’ve never before given me the time of day, is laughable.
So pay me money if you want me to share your boring ideas with the world:
And in any case, that’s what advertising is for: non-stories. In politics, there’s one sure-fire way to get your story/non-story in the paper – buy an ad. It’s no different on the blogs. You don’t expect favors from the Washington Post, why do you expect them for us?
My point isn’t that the blogs should be bought, or can be bought. My point is that the blogs should be supported by the larger progressive community, and they’re not. Liberal non-profits, political operations, and companies interested in reaching either a progressive audience or an inside-the-beltway crowd wouldn’t think twice about spending $60,000 on a Washington Post ad, spending a good chunk of change on an ad in The Hill or Roll Call, or paying a PR firm a $20,000+ a month retainer to get their news on the blogs, among other venues (NOTE: the very best way to get me NOT to cover a story is to have a PR firm contact me). But the notion of spending $800 (or hopefully, several thousand dollars) on a blog ad gives them serious pause. Then they turn around and expect favors.
There’s an old trite saying: “Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?” Well, the milk just dried up.
Ah, the old come-on-you-idiots-show-me-the-money sales pitch. It works every time, I hear.
