Media watch·
Lord save us from hungry reporters in a slow news week. Wired News reporter Daniel Terdiman called me up a couple of days ago, asking about accusations that websites -- Fark.com in particular -- are selling editorial links. It's an important issue, with companies such as Vibrant Media pitching ad-supported inline popups to every large web property. But to hang the story on Fark, with an overblown headline, that was a dubious choice. I mean: have you looked at Fark recently? Those guys have too much fun showing boobies to pander to advertisers.
I told Wired's Terdiman, when he called up for comment, that this sounded like a non-story. At Gawker Media, we used to work with Gogi Gupta, one of Fark's external sales reps. He's good, but aggressive. And salespeople are always trying to sell advertising units and inventory that doesn't exist. Rogue sales rep, no longer repping. What's new? Of course, Terdiman selected out any dampening quotes.
The moral of this story?
· Online reporters are as much whores for traffic as the average blogger. Anything about Fark is bound to get attention. · In August, when there's not much to write about, bloggers such as Andrew Sullivan take the month off. Real reporters don't have that luxury so, if there are no controversies, they manufacture them. · I do wonder why reporters ever call up for quotes. It's not as if they'll ever let them get in the way of a good story. Bloggers may spin the story one way or another, as I'm doing now, but at least there's no pretense of objective reporting.
