Big Liberal Bloggers Tee Off On Progressive Groups For Not Sharing Ad Wealth

[DainBramaged]

Some of the leading liberal bloggers are privately furious with the major progressive groups — and in some cases, the Democratic Party committees — for failing to spend money advertising on their sites, even as these groups constantly ask the bloggers for free assistance in driving their message.

It’s a development that’s creating tensions on the left and raises questions about the future role of the blogosphere at a time when a Dem is in the White House and liberalism could be headed for a period of sustained ascendancy.

A number of these top bloggers agreed to come on record with me after privately arguing to these groups that they deserved a share in the ad wealth and couldn’t be taken for granted any longer.

“They come to us, expecting us to give them free publicity, and we do, but it’s not a two way street,” Jane Hamsher, the founder of FiredogLake, said in an interview. “They won’t do anything in return. They’re not advertising with us. They’re not offering fellowships. They’re not doing anything to help financially, and people are growing increasingly resentful.”

Hamsher singled out Americans United for Change, which raises and spends big money on TV ad campaigns driving Obama’s agenda, as well as the constellation of groups associated with it, and the American Association of Retired Persons, also a big TV advertiser.

“Most want the easy way — having a big blogger promote their agenda,” adds Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos. “Then they turn around and spend $50K for a one-page ad in the New York Times or whatever.” Moulitsas adds that officials at such groups often do nothing to engage the sites’s audiences by, say, writing posts, instead wanting the bloggers to do everything for them.

The behind-the-scenes tensions go to the heart of the role these bloggers have created for themselves in Democratic politics — they’re basically advocates and operatives with big platforms — and their future role, too. They argue that their efforts and fundraising helped drive the Democratic ascendancy. Yet even the Dem party committees are reluctant to advertise with them, raising the question of whether the party will ever be willing to seriously invest long-term in this new media infrastructure.

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/blogosphere/big-liberal-bloggers-tee-off-on-progressive-groups-for-not-sharing-ad-wealth/

[ohheckyeah]

1. I personally prefer independent bloggers

who aren't driving the agenda for anybody. If I want bought and paid for news I can get that most anywhere.

[Luminous Animal]

2. Contrary to popular belief...

Bloggers don't live rent free in their mom's basement.

Even, the smallest blogger dedicated to maintaining her or his site will need a revenue stream in order to free up time to do the necessary work of blogging effectively.

[ohheckyeah]

3. No, not really. n/t

[blogslut]

5. Not really how?

Do independent bloggers not deserve to make money? Do they not at least deserve to be compensated for their time, talent as well as the costs of owning and operating their sites?

[ohheckyeah]

6. You can make money from ads

without selling out to a political party.

No all bloggers go into blogging with the idea of making money. Some find the time to do it just for the love of writing and interacting with others.

[DainBramaged]

8. Why don't YOU try and survive on 'ads' genius

you seem to be such an expert. :eyes:

[Runcible Spoon]

16. Umm, a lot of people with successful blogs get by quite well.

perezhilton built a mini empire on blogging.

[DainBramaged]

19. Show us their w2's instead of assuming and we'll all be smarter, you included.

[Runcible Spoon]

32. W-2's?

:rofl:

You've pretty much just shown how much YOU know about paying taxes on website revenue.

[DainBramaged]

33. I wonder why you are attacking this thread

actually, I don't anymore.

[ohheckyeah]

22. I don't try to make money off my blog

but thanks anyway.

Got an anger problem genius?

[DainBramaged]

24. You appear to be an expert, tell us oh wise one how to get rich on Internet click-through ads

Has the DU welcome wagon visited you yet? It delivers pizza.

[ohheckyeah]

27. Excuse me?

Banned because I happen to think they shouldn't accept money for driving the Democratic agenda? I didn't say a damn thing about getting rich off click through ads. You can sell ads to lots of organizations without being a political tool.

Nobody is ever allowed to disagree with you on D.U.?

You really have an anger problem. Piss off.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ohheckyeah]

29. Has a problem with reading something into what

was actually written, too.

[Howardx]

30. clearly

that is another problem.

[Howardx]

4. kos and hamsher arent hurting for ad money

sounds a bit greedy to me.

[DainBramaged]

9. Really, a bit greedy? I guess they should just barely scrape by?

It astonishes me how selfish some of you here are. Do you have any idea what it costs to maintain DU? Ask Skinner. You think these guys are living the good life.

Get a clue and wake up.

[Howardx]

10. do some research

neither one of those two is "just scraping by". take your own advice here.

[DainBramaged]

11. No, you still don't get it, you take the two most successful and single them out

to the exclusion of others. You have a problem with the voices of the Progressive movement making a living? I think you do. Tell you what, YOU start a blog, contract for the bandwidth and servers "those two" need, and tell me what you have left at the end of the month.


Just the fact that you feel that they shouldn't make a living makes me think you have another iron in the fire, and it isn't to the benefit of Progressives.

[Howardx]

14. what crap

you have always been a pinhead, where exactly did i say they shouldnt make a living?

[DainBramaged]

17. Pinhead?

Piss off, go bother someone else, you just earned a red X for your stupidity. And I'm POSITIVE you'll reply in spite of my not needing to see your monumentally asinine reply to prove to everyone else how smart you want us to think you are.

[Runcible Spoon]

15. HA!

DU admins do JUST FINE. To tell yourself any differently is pretty ignorant. I for one wish there was more transparency about where the money goes, as well as the fact that the admins are pretty much MIA these days; DU is largely managed by the mods, who are, as you know, unpaid.

[DainBramaged]

18. You too are clueless. You have their W2's?

You know what BuzzFlash costs each month to maintain? JUST links to news. $15,000 minimum. They post it every month during their fud drives. JUST to keep it up on the internet. I guess it's OK for you to post here as long as it doesn't cost YOU any money.

The two of you have no idea what it costs to run DU or any other high visibility blog, none, so until you do, why don't you comment in a thread about Sarah Palin's kids. Maybe your expertise lies there.

[Howardx]

25. what buzzflash du or raw story costs per month is meaningless

as we are not discussing them, we are discussing firedoglake and dkos.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DainBramaged]

34. Wait for the sound

"click"

Your wish is my command. Your attacks on blogs in this thread assures me of your true intentions and who you really are.

[Luminous Animal]

35. Actually, ad money

would help them expand their activism. Hamsher actually does not receive the ad money that she deserves. Kos has been good turning money into organizational results. Congress Matters is an important public service tool.


And you are ignoring their specific beef... that they are solicited by Democratic organizations in order to publicize the efforts of those organizations (and publicizing fills the organizations coffers) but they are ignored when it comes down to the revenue stream, steering that stream rather to the corporate media who, regularly, give Democratic organizations short shrift.

You are also deliberately misinterpreting their complaint. There is no tit for tat implied. Rather, the message is that we are all in this together so how about treating us as if we are all in this together.

[DainBramaged]

37. The intent by the poster(s) was to discredit KOS and Hamsher as money grubbers

without caring about the mission or the service they provide. I think by now, their actual intent and purpose in this thread is realized.


Thanks for trying to explain, but they don't care about "being Progressive".

[bbgrunt]

7. that's the same way they treated Air America.

[KamaAina]

12. AARP really isn't a "progressive" group

their local rep out here, at least, recoils from any suggestion that AARP might be anything less than completely politically neutral and bipartisan.

[DainBramaged]

13. If AARP supported the blogs, I for one would end my boycott of them and join

[Luminous Animal]

36. AARP lost focus on their mission

when they started selling insurance. They were instrumental in promoting Bush's perverse Medicare reform.

[DainBramaged]

38. Their leadership did, not the membership, I remember the battle well

[DainBramaged]

20. SO I see there are TWO of you in this thread trying to tamp it out, with NO proof of your claims

Ulterior motives?

[Howardx]

26. proof of claims

"22. Daily Kos is a political commentary site. Compete and Quantcast both put unique visitors a month at 600,000. Quantcast reports monthly pageviews of 21 million, which seems extremely high compared to unique visitors. The site runs a modest number of ads which would appear to have low CPMs and Google Adsense text advertising. CPM per page is unlikely to be higher than $4. Daily Kos has revenue of $1 million a year and probably a high operating margin. Operating income is probably slightly less than $500,000. The site has idiosyncratic content and its audience is dropping. Its multiple is not likely to top 4x giving Daily Kos a value of $2 million."

kos owns this too

"15. SB Nation is a network of 185 sports blogs which has two million unique visitors and 20 million pageviews a month. The home site carries a very modest amount of advertising which appears to be getting mid-level CPMs. CPM per page is around $6. Total revenue per year is $1.5 million. The operation has a fair number of people for a company its size so operating margins are not above 30%. With a 6x multiple of operating income SB Nation is worth $2.7 million."

http://247wallst.com/2009/02/23/the-twenty-five-most-valuable-blogs/

[SoCalDem]

21. Step one.. "reform" mainstream media.. why?

Because as long as the ones with the BIG microphones and the right-wing opinion page squatters exist at "liberal"newspapers, the upper echelon lefties will still feel compelled to stay at arm's length from the "blogosphere"..

We all pretty much know that republicans "support" their media..all of it.. and they do it well, but dems have always tried to remain "apart" from their lefties, because the "mainstream" media spent 30 years painting us as a fringe group of hippies, marxists, morally corrupt, puppet-waving, bearded, barefoot, fatigue-wearing, latte-drinking treehuggers..

Money talks.. it says I support these people and what they stand for.

The DLCers and the ones at the top of the party (especially when in power), always walk to the light..in the middle of the road..and even cross to the right side of that road, in hopes of "winning converts"..

[DainBramaged]

23. Some of the replies in this thread are proof of the non-support "we" give our voices

the attitude seems to be "fuck MSNBC, fuck the blogs, I AM HAPPY IN MY EXISTANCE, and the rest of you can suck wind". We can't survive like this. And I use the ratings of KO and RM, blown away by FAUX every night as an example. Why? Because "we" don't have cable, don't watch TV, don't like them, all these excuses that gave the Reich control for 28 years. And the people with the money, they can't see the forest for the trees. These are the people who still read newspapers and don't even own a Blackberry.

[sandnsea]

39. It's not just politics - it's every industry

Tourism, small business, outdoor recreation, computers, - doesn't matter. Everybody wants web sites but nobody wants to pay for them.

The really stupid part is that anybody can support small web sits through commissioned purchases - but they'll go to Travelocity or Amazon directly, even if they found what they wanted on that independently owned site.

:crazy: