Gary Andrews

If anonymous commenting on the internet had a users guide, then one of the more sensible pieces of advice would be “Don’t do it from your work PC.”

It’s advice a commenter on the previous post would have been good to consider. I don’t make a habit of running Whois searches on the IP address of every commenter but, given that this place doesn’t get that many trolls or sockpuppets, and given the subject matter, I was a bit curious. Turns out the IP address was from one of the (many) PR agencies who’ve pitched me this World Cup.

Fail.

My first instinct was to blog about it. Look at me! I’ve found another PR person not getting online! I can call them out and it’ll add to the legions of PR fails!

Yes, that would have been fun. But what would it really achieve, in all honesty?

I’m not in the habit of naming and shaming – it’s always struck me as a little counter productive. And, frankly, it the grand scheme of things immature PR leaves childish anonymous comment on insignificant blog isn’t really up there with war crimes.

After sleeping on it, I felt less comfortable with the idea of outing the agency. After all, one employee isn’t representative of the whole company.

The thought also occurred that if this had been a piece of journalism for publication I would have at least made an effort to get the accused’s side of the story before going anywhere near the publish button. And if, as I’ve often said, bloggers aspire to be journalists, then they should hold themselves to the standards journalists have as well. Even if journalists regularly fall short of these themselves.

So I emailed the director of the agency, who emailed back promptly, with an invitation to talk over the issues on the phone, which I did.

And I now consider the matter to be at an end, and I’m really satisfied with the response (and no, I didn’t demand any action against the perpetrator. It’s not my place to tell a company how to conduct their own HR).

Why? Because ten minutes on the phone was productive. The director came across as very switched on and took the issues seriously. I came away with a very favourable impression.

What’s more, we both agreed to keep each other’s contact details. They’d contact me if they thought it would be useful, but would also take me off the general mailing list, and I know that there’s somebody at the agency I can contact if I’m writing stories on certain topics, which I may well do in the future.

A win-win situation, really.

So, what’s the lesson (other than don’t try and post childish comments on a blog during work time).

While there’s a lot wrong with PR, there’s also a lot of good, sensible people working hard in the industry, doing their best to make connections with bloggers. And to a certain extent they have to tread on eggshells while doing this.

A wrong move with the wrong blogger, no matter how well meaning or unintentional and you can find yourself passed around Twitter, mocked by all and sundry. There’s no guarantee that if you catch the blogger on a bad day with a bad move, they won’t take umbridge and blog about it.

Not that there’s anything wrong with calling out bad practice, when appropriate.

But it did make me stop and think. How many bloggers have burned bridges or got themselves a reputation for being difficult for happily blogging PR fails.

Yet could they have improved things and actually developed a good long-term relationship with a good contact if they’d taken a step back and tried to resolve things behind the scenes first. It’s not as if anybody was going to beat them to publishing it, in a lot of cases.

One line from an old news editor of mine always sticks in my mind – “[Competitor x] may be first. But we’re always going to be right.” In other words, I’d always prefer to take a while longer to establish and verify the facts rather than rush to publish. Today was no different. I’m glad I did.

I consider today’s conversation confidential, although I think it’s worth quoting one line from my conversation. As an agency, I was told, we’re committed to treating bloggers the same as journalists.

I like that, I think it’s a good attitude. It’s something I’ve said roughly the same in the past, although you obviously have to make allowances for the different medium you’re working with.

And although bloggers are very good at calling out bad journalism, both blogs and journalists can be even quicker to call out bad PR – whether it’s justified or not – or calling out anything they consider wrong in general.

I’ve seen plenty of examples over the last couple of years where bloggers and PR have got into very public spats over something that has always struck me could have been dealt with without having to go public.

There’s a lot to be said for making an effort to build contacts and relationships rather than losing it quickly (although equally you can say that PR in general could avoid a lot of these issues if people from the industry didn’t continue to make elementary errors).

I’ve always maintained that others should be treated with the same respect you’d hope to be treated. I’d like to hope that, God forbid, should I make a similar fail one day, that the blogger has the good grace to contact me and give me a chance to talk over the issue before hitting publish.

I’d be interested in hearing your views on this one. Do you think bloggers hit publish too quickly? Should they blog first and ask questions later? Or is it only fair? What would you have done?

I don’t think there are any right answers, personally, but I’m very glad I took the time to contact them. Given the chance I’d much rather try and work on developing a relationship rather than kill it before it had the chance to succeed or fail.

written by Gary \\ tags: blogging, journalism ethics, pitching bloggers, PR

Heard the one about the journalism graduate offered a job for £10k in London? Yes, that is an actual position that came up in conversation with a friend the other day. The experience, work-wise, sounds excellent. The experience, life-wise, probably amounts to renting out a cardboard box under Hammersmith Bridge.

I only mention because ever since last month there’s been an ongoing debate rumbling on, started mainly by Ed Ceasar’s Sunday Times piece, Hold The Front Page, I Want To Be On It, where he details the lengths – and financial pain – journalism graduates have to go through to get onto a national paper. The picture painted was somewhat bleak and depressing.

Since then, others have contributed to the debate. Adam Tinworth notes that Ceasar is very narrow in focus and omits vast swathes of the media:

“Journalism is a very, very broad church – and it was so long before the internet came along to knock down some walls, pop in an extra transept or two, and generally widen the whole place. Radio, TV, newspapers (local and national), consumer magazines, business magazines, niche subscription-only titles. Online news sites. Blogs. And now the whole, growing world of hyperniche and hyperlocal sites.”

Roy Greenslade partly agrees with Adam on this point, but also says that in his experience, most of his journalism students aren’t interested in these opportunities:

“I may exhort them to think about entrepreneurial journalism. They may learn about successful online news start-ups. They often tell me that mainstream media controlled by big, bad, profiteering moguls is a danger to press freedom. But these so-called “digital natives” still want to work for mogul-owned media.”

And Laura Oliver from journalism.co.uk, who is one of those people who, hopefully, acts as an inspiration to other recent graduates feels that the focus of the journalism postgrad courses are too narrow.

“I graduated from City’s newspaper journalism course in 2007. I applied for graduate schemes on national newspapers along with the rest of my classmates, but largely because I felt I had to. I wanted to work online and for a smaller newsroom/company where I hoped I could make more of a mark. But from day one it felt as if the expectations of our course were national or nothing – and I know from speaking to other recently-qualified journalists that it wasn’t just my course that pushed this view.”

Of course, this is nothing new. I sketched out a few thoughts on the subject just over two years ago and it doesn’t seem like much has changed. If anything, the world for new journalism graduates is even more unclear now than it was back then.

There’s a lot I recognise in all viewpoints. Ceasar’s article is all too depressingly familiar and chimes with the experiences of a lot of friends and colleagues.

Even those who managed to get themselves onto the nationals did so with a hideous level of debt that they’re nowhere near to repaying, and jobs in the market aren’t really offering huge salary boosts. When I applied for a interesting position, with an unspecified level of pay, a while back, I backed out after realising I’d have to take an £8k pay cut. And this was for a relatively senior role.

But then again, there are so many more opportunities, so many more publications online and the boundaries of media and the online world are so vague that willing graduates could find themselves in an excellent job that gave them plenty of training and experience if they’re prepared to think beyond the usual suspects.

And these kind of roles don’t necessarily mean a job on the nationals is beyond you. I’ve met a variety of people from a variety of ages ranges who’ve all made it to national media through completely different means. And yes, while increasingly a postgraduate is necessary, the path post-degree is of varying length and direction.

But for me, still, what it comes down to is money. Or lack of.

No matter how many different opportunities and different media and organisations there are out there, you still have to pay the bills – and your student debts – somehow. And that’s getting harder to do these days.

Not that pay will rise anytime soon. Universities are still churning out a large number of media graduates and even when you take into account the postgraduate courses, the job-to-graduate ratio is still at the stage where employers can keep their wages low – they’ll always be another talented, well-trained eager young thing willing to get that first foot on the ladder.

This doesn’t even take into account the large number of websites and web-only publications. It’s unlikely many of these will pay vast sums of money, either for freelance pieces or permanent positions. Partly because a lot of these places are so small that they don’t have the cash, and partly because there are enough people who’ll happily accept the odd low-pay commission for a bit of extra cash.

Put simply, no matter what the ideal situation is or how many opportunities there are out there, the economics of media pay do not paint a rosy picture.

As for the national positions – the national papers, the BBC TV and radio prime reporting positions, those big name magazines – those with the talent and drive to get there stand a good chance of doing so, although those with some cash stored away and a place to stay in London will always have an advantage. Unpaid internships and just being able to have that flexibility to come into the office helps.

(Not that it’s much different outside of London. I got my first freelance shifts after essentially coming in and working for free every day for a month at my local radio station. Not that I begrudged this – they didn’t force me and I had nothing else to do that summer, plus I really enjoyed the work. But I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t done the unpaid, unrequested work.)

I can’t speak for B2B publications and websites as I don’t have any direct experience of these, although general impressions are these are an excellent place to start on a decent salary, especially if you know finance, economics, or science. They’re also probably a neglected option by many graduates, sadly.

As for locals – and here I definitely disagree – plenty of postgrads I know or have trained with have been happy to go onto the locals. I was delighted to get a job in local radio. It’s an excellent training ground and I’m immensely proud of my work and background there.

As much as anything, just as there were those who were determined to make it to the national media, there were also those who were happy just to get offered a job, or those who saw it as a stepping stone to bigger things.

Locals are a great training ground and, mostly, a great place to work but ultimately, again, money plays a huge part. Salaries are typically low and pay rises are rarely forthcoming.

This is fine when you’re fresh out of university with no commitments and the debt something that can be dealt with at some other time. But eventually you start having to make important decisions like settling down (with a partner), deposits and mortgages, kids, career and just how much disposable income you want.

It’s at that stage where idealism fades into practicality  - and pushing yourself to get onto a national has, perhaps, a slightly more limited window of opportunity, if that’s the way you want to go.

That said, I know so many different people who work for so many different media, all of whom juggle the issues listed above that it’s difficult to generalise, as I’ve inevitably done above. But that doesn’t mean that money doesn’t hang over most media professionals’ heads.

To paraphrase one journalist, as we were chatting post-twofootedtackle podcast about the diversifying new media and the number of people prepared to work for free, “The media is changing and I’m not sure if I like it. I’ve embraced it, but I don’t necessarily like it.”

I think all of us have had that thought at one point or another.

written by Gary \\ tags: Ed Ceasar, journalism, media debates, national newspapers, pay in the media, postgraduate journalists, Roy Greenslade

And they’re off. We’re now well and truly into electioneering territory as Hobson’s Choice the General Election 2010 rolls well and truly into town. Forget any hope of finding out news that isn’t connected to three middle aged men trying to out-quip each other. It’s everywhere. Including social media. And as a recovering politics geek who spends more time than is healthy on these places, I find it all completely fascinating.

Last election Twitter didn’t exist, all the cool kids were flocking to MySpace and, while the political blogosphere was in fairly healthy shape (and, it has to be said, a lot friendlier), the whole area was seen as a niche concern. These days, political news is being discussed on social media before the speech has even finished, while somebody will already be plotting the inevitable Downfall parody. Yes, for General Election 2010, social media matters – both to the media and the politicians. And that’s both a good and a bad thing.

The bad covers a range of areas, the most obvious being that politicians and the media will try too hard to woo and give credence to what is, in all honesty,  a small percentage of the voting population by focusing too heavily on what Twitter users and bloggers are saying. That’s not to say they shouldn’t, but us social media types may not be representative of the areas of society who a change of government will make the biggest differences to.

[Facebook, incidentally, is a completely different proposition and one where there is are genuine possibilities for breaking down barriers between the public and politicians and enhancing democracy like never before.

My feelings on YouTube and politicians, though, generally falls under the same category as the words "let's do a viral."]

There’s also the unsightly and rather depressing sight of grown adults indulging in petty point scoring across these networks, and the media breathlessly reporting this like IT MATTERS. It possibly does, but maybe not to the level it gets elevated to. I’m more interested in working out if the sums add up, or there’s a commitment to, say, democratic reform of Parliament than seeing a schoolboy-like putdown that serves nothing other than mutual backslapping from that team.

Then there’s the gaffes. With social media now firmly entrenched in our lives, it was inevitable that there would be plenty of political gaffes, fails and misunderstandings on how to use it all.

Us social media bods across the media or in brands engaging online have just about got the hang of what works and what doesn’t, by and large, although are always learning. We’re adaptable to the needs of our audience because we’ve been listening and engaging with communities for a while now.

Politicians, with some notable exceptions, haven’t. There’s a reason why companies are prepared to spend thousands on pounds in training their staff on how to use social media. Sure, they can use Facebook and Twitter for personal use, but that’s a very different thing to acting as a representative for your brand in a public space, where anything you do can be attributed to your paymasters. The list of companies who’ve committed brand-damaging social faux pas grows monthly.

Stuart MacLennan could have probably done with some of this training.

And it’s why there will probably continue to be many more social media gaffes as the election campaign carries on. If MacLennan is the only political online casualty over the next month, I’ll be a very surprised man.

Yet these sort of fails also highlight the good side of social media and politics. For a start, it enables us to get an insight into prospective candidates, many of whom you’ll never have heard of, and have at least something to judge their suitability for office on. And if they fall up short, then that helps inform your vote.

This is something that, the few blogging MPs that existed in 2005 aside, simply wasn’t available at the last election and anything that brings politicians closer to the public is a good thing, broadly, in my book.

In many ways, this reminds me somewhat of a post I wrote almost a year ago, on the criticism around Gordon Brown’s YouTube video, and Hazel Blears’ comments that YouTube was no substitute for knocking on doors.

While I was critical of Blears, perhaps I was also a little disingenuous, although probably not in the way she was meaning. Yes, it’s good that politicians are experimenting with social media and using it to campaign with, but it’s not really a substitute for talking to the electorate. Fortunately social media allows just that.

But it’s a two way conversation and those politicians and political parties that get it right may reap the benefits. Lets not forget, 12 votes can be enough to swing a marginal, so engaging online could just be a seat-winner.

That is to say, those who talk with rather to to the electorate will help their case. A politician could just be on Twitter broadcasting his thoughts, on YouTube, blogging away, and encouraging people to become a fan on Facebook, but all this activity, while making the politician appear a bit more switched on, means nothing if said politician doesn’t get engage.

The really good ones will chat back and forth and listen over Twitter, respond to comments on their blog, answer questions on their Facebook page, and be an active member of the YouTube community. Now that becomes a bit more likely to get a precious few extra votes. But more than that, it shows the politician is prepared to listen, engage and respond. A bit like a 21st century version of door knocking.

It’s also one of the reasons why, in my mind, the whole Cash Gordon debacle wasn’t the greatest of ideas. Many of the most effective or notacable online campaigns tap directly into the zeitgeist of that particular moment. Think Trafigura and Jan Moir.

They are a swift, sharp, popular movement that gains traction because people feel strong enough to, at the very least, Tweet about it. The story or campaign then takes on a life of its own from there, and becomes a story in itself.

But trying to tell somebody on a social network what they should be getting angry about is unlikely to go beyond the traditional supporter base unless it touches a nerve, and the Labour / Unite issue wasn’t enough to get worked up about. Had the Conservatives done something quick and cheap around the hiking of cider tax or the Digital Economy Bill, then they might have got more widespread support.

Again, this shows the value of listening and responding – and is possibly why having something cheap and ready to go isn’t necessarily a bad idea. It’s easy enough to spot something developing on Twitter if you know how to listen, and if it ties in with a political party’s ideals, then there’s certainly possibilities, providing it’s not done in a completely top-down manner.

And if the online campaign is very top-down and has an indifferent response, you’re much more likely to see the politically agnostic hijack it for a bit of fun (leaving the page open to a very simple barely-even a hack is just stupid. As is claiming it’s still a victory. Sometimes it’d be nice if political people were prepared to say they made a mistake).

Those MPs who understand the sensitivities of a social media environment and listen and respond are those who may well benefit. My own MP has gone up in my estimation for a very quick response to my email about the Digital Economy Bill, although it’d be nice to see them on Facebook and Twitter. It’s little things like that which can sway where an individuals vote will go.

Social media, as with its relation to most aspects of life, isn’t the be all and end all when it comes to politics, but it is an incredibly useful communication channel to get an insight into the person behind the politician, as well as a chance to ask direct questions, something we so rarely get the chance to do.

Come the end of the election, it’ll be fascinating to see how the three main parties – and the other parties – have harnessed social media and how well they’ve done, on both an individual MP level, and a party level.

There will undoubtedly be more mistakes. But there may be triumphs. And with the possibility of a hung parliament very real, that could make a huge difference. Or at least a difference between me actually knowing who I want to vote for in advance of polling day, as opposed to my usual dilemma of not being impressed with any candidate and having to resist the temptation to draw something rather crude on the ballot paper. Not that I’ve cocked up my vote yet, mind.

DISCLOSURE: I’m not a member of any political party and have no idea who, if anybody, I’ll be voting for come May 6th.

written by Gary \\ tags: Conservatives, general election 2010, Labour, online politics, politicians on Twitter, Politics, politics and social media, Stuart MacLennan, YouTube

All last week, the excellent Darika Ahrens at Grapevine Consulting posted a series of pieces on why PR was losing the social media battle. They were an excellent analysis of why PR could be owning the social media space, yet continued to make basic mistakes.

Darika also asked me if I’d be able to contribute and, er, well last week didn’t happen mainly because I was excessively busy and also because it’s so hard to add anything to her excellent pieces.

One thing to briefly say, though, is while social media has moved on, and PR and brands are more willing to engage, general attitudes are still stuck in the past a little. If these attitudes can change, then we could see a real shift in thinking. But it requires organisations and senior people to face up to this and make a conscious effort.

The two biggest social media attitude problems, and they’re not mutually exclusive and can frequently be found it the same office, is that social media is an area of specialised PR that only need concern a few digital people, and that it’s quick, cheap, and easy. Often the first assumption informs actions on the second.

First off, social media may have been specialised once upon a time, while those of us beavered away understanding niche bloggers and communities, but it’s no longer part a different world.

Social media planning should be built into the start of any good campaign. If you insist on separating out digital from regular PR (and I personally think the lines are blurred enough for the distinction to be nearly meaningless) then for heavens sake, include the digital team from the start, rather than realising you’d quite like to do something on Twitter a few weeks beforehand. If nothing else, you’ll get a greater sense of what’s realistic.

And therein follows the second part. Any campaign that has poor social media planning often seems to throw things together late in the day. I still get “Can we push this out to bloggers” a week before hand, as do, anecdotally, many others, it seems.

Darika says she no longer takes short-term pitching to blogger projects, and you can understand why. These are the ones that are cobbled together at last minute, often with ludicrous targets and expectations, and invariably require so much work around them with so little return that they’re more trouble than it’s worth.

If you’re building a strategy around bloggers – and it’s also worth asking ‘what is a blogger’, given that so many mainstream outlets are just as likely to stick it on their blog as in the paper – then these things take time, money and no small amount of effort. You would throw together a major plan for print media the week beforehand. Why do the same with bloggers?

None of this is rocket science. And none of these need be done at the expense of other media coverage (another traditional mis-assumption). It requires the same thought and discipline as any other campaign.

It’s nothing that can’t be fixed but, as Darika says, we have a long way to go.

written by Gary \\ tags: fixpr, social media, social media PR

Google Buzz slipped out yesterday with a minimum of fuss, or at least, a minimum of fuss compared to the launch of Google Wave. Still, at least expectations were dampened down, and today Gmail users have found Buzz arriving in their inbox.

What to make it of, though. Mark Cahill says it’s the moment that social media has finally reached the mainstream, calling it a “Facebook killer of epic proportions”.

On the other hand, Jon Silk poses a few reasons as to why Buzz might not be all that. His point that not everybody uses Gmail is especially valid. If you’ve already got one email you’re happy with, why move to Gmail? There’s less of a reason to do that than to sign up to Twitter and especially Facebook.

For me, as it always tends to do, Buzz falls somewhere inbetween. On first impressions, yes, it does seem to be similar to Twitter and you wonder why on earth you’d need it. But building it into email is a smart move – you can’t avoid it and if you know the majority of people on there, then that’s another good reason to use it.

It also seems to sit somewhere between Facebook and Twitter and has excellent sharing functionality, plus the mobile aspect seems good as well (and this is one area where it can really steal a march on the other social networks, should it want to).

But yet it still doesn’t seem essential or compelling, in the way that Twitter and Facebook are when you first sign up. And there are little niggles as well. I’m not keen on having responses land directly into my inbox (you can set up a filter for this, but how many people can be bothered). And if your Gmail contacts are, like mine, a complete mess and full of everyone who has ever spammed you, then that’s also a negative.

At the end of the day, despite the breathless hype and analysis, probably a greater indication of how important Buzz is in social media will be how often we’re all using it six months down the line. If there’s demonstrative growth and users find themselves returning every day, then Buzz is worth watching.

In a way, Google products now have it harder than, say, Twitter or Facebook had. The latter two were allowed time to grow organically. Google launches come with an air of expectation, both in terms of the product and in terms of immediate success. If it’s not done what’s expected of it in a month, then it’s written off.

Which brings me nicely to Google Wave, that collaborative tool that was launched into Beta to a huge amount of fanfare last year and is no the subject of an endless trickle of snarky asides from social media land.

If you listen to Twitter, the consensus is that Wave is a damp squid that’s died a death. I’m not so sure, and there’s a reason for this. That reason is my dad.

A quick explanation: my dad is not somebody who immerses himself in social media. He does not, to the best of my knowledge, blog, Facebook or Twitter, although he’s probably used social review sites without realising they’re social. He also edits a Devon folk magazine and another country-wide folk newsletter.

He has a loose team of contributors and edits both in his spare time, often chasing down copy, pictures and listings. Most of this is done via email, as are any discussions around it.

When, on a visit home for Christmas, I showed him Wave, he was excited. He immediately got it and got what he could use it for. To him, it wasn’t social media. It was a tool to make his working life infinitely easier, and immediately asked for a Wave invite.

And that’s where I think the value is in Wave. There’s been a number of times recently I’ve been involved in long emails chains or collaborations where Wave would have made a difference, but nobody’s been prepared to move it into Wave because they perceive it to be a waste of time that nobody uses.

Well, with Wave, you don’t have to have everybody using it and being visible to the world. The small groups who are busy sharing and collaborating on projects are probably finding it more useful than the social media evangelists.

To me, part of them problem with Wave was the amount of fanfare and hype that accompanied it, followed by the confusion, didn’t help its cause. And because it was social, but not quite what was expected and wasn’t somewhere that you could easily hang out, like Twitter or Facebook, it was deemed not worthy. Yet I still think it’s value as a business tool, not as a social media tool, has yet to be realised.

I still believe in Wave. Providing it doesn’t completely die, there’s a good chance it could see a revival when people start realisting how useful it can be for their working (not social) world. Out of Buzz and Wave, I still feel Wave has better long-term potential, despite it gaining less brownie points.

I may be wrong. I so often am. But it’ll be interesting to see is Buzz can hold the collective interest. Either way, it’s certainly less innovative and useful than Wave.

UPDATE:

If you want a good example of why Buzz hasn’t perhaps thought through all privacy explanations, then this is a very serious and sobering reason as to why opening up to your inbox contacts, and others, without asking is not a good idea.

Also, I can imagine journalists and sources may not be best pleased. And if your Gmail contacts are anything like mine (ie chaotic) then there may be a few people in there who you’d rather not share things with. I still think Buzz is (just about) a good idea, but privacy’s taken a back seat on this one, which is worrying.

written by Gary \\ tags: Google Buzz, Google Wave, social networks

Sometimes shows that you’re interested in pass you by. Had it not been for idly flicking through the Saturday TV listings while waiting for my toast to, er, toast I’d have completely missed The Virtual Revolution on Saturday night. And even then, I only Sky Plussed it on a whim, given that I was recording football that night as well.

This is a rather roundabout way of saying make an effort to seek it out and watch it if it’s passed you by as well. It’s an excellent and illuminating exploration of how the internet has changed our world. It’s especially good if you’re new to social media and want an overview that doesn’t assume knowledge or patronise. Absolutely fascinating and probably one of the few non-sport related programmes I’ll be making an effort to watch.

I also suspect some of the themes in the second programme are ones I’ll touch on when I finally get around to writing my Peru / social media post.

(Yes, I know it’s generated a lot of buzz online. I’ve missed it, ok. I’ve been busy with other things, and when that happens, TV tends to take a back seat)

written by Gary \\ tags: BBC, social media, The Virtual Revolution

Ever since Murdoch brought paywalls back into fashion like bad mullets in indie videos, I’ve been wrestling with assorted pros and cons (having heard from both sides), so I thought I’d put them down here.

So, lets take this hypothetical. David Conn is one of my favourite football writers, and somebody I would be happy to pay to read his articles.

I also enjoy reading Gabriele Marcotti’s pieces and while I’ll make a point of reading them, I probably don’t like them enough to pay for them.

Let’s imagine, hypothetically, the Guardian put a paywall around Conn’s work. I’d happily pay for it as, I suspect, would other fans of Conn’s work. But his potential audience would be diminished.

Now, Conn is one of the few writers who consistently picks up on issues not covered elsewhere. His are articles that deserve the widest possible audience because of the content he covers and the financial implications for football.

But if you put Conn behind a paywall, these important stories reach a much smaller audience. Important issues that get casual readers thinking may be missed. He will, if you like, be preaching mostly to the converted.

But on the other hand the money generated from the paywall will most likely easily pay for Conn to carry on his excellent work, leaving the consumers (or Conn-sumers, if you like) satisfied.

Meanwhile, Marcotti is unaffected as he remains free to everybody, and may well pick up extra readers as a result of Conn and his colleagues vanishing behind a paywall.

Now reverse that. Conn is free and available to read for all, but Gabriele Marcotti’s articles go behind a paywall.

Marcotti is an excellent writer and provides quality analysis on the Premier League, a topic all too readily filled with hyperbolic dross that panders to the masses.

But by restricting access to his articles, it encourages readers to look elsewhere. For while there are plenty of people who write about the Premier League, both in other papers and on blogs, there are very few who cover the topics Conn does, with his investigative journalism.

So Marcotti will attract his devotees and subscribers but those, like me, who enjoy his work but want to save money, will look elsewhere. There are more likely to be other insightful Premier League writers than investigative football journalists available.

Marcotti, again, may manage to pay for himself through the paywall, but, again, we lose insightful analysis. As with the loss of Conn behind a paywall, it is readers who lose out, unless they want to pay. But he may well pick up less subscribers.

But then, in this hypothetical world, if Conn’s employers can’t fund all his work, that could also lead to a drop in quality or number of articles from Conn. But those that are written will reach the maximum possible audience.

It’s a really tough argument with many pros and cons here. Do you want to ensure your favourite writer can afford to keep writing? But what about the lac of impact a genuinely hard-hitting piece could have.

Certainly, with football content, I’ll be surprised if paywalls will ever be the answer, given how much coverage is out there. I’d happily pay for David Conn or Tim Vickery’s work, but I wouldn’t miss the Sun or even the Times’ coverage (although may pay for an occasional piece by Marcotti if recommended to me).

And therein is the crux. Conn and Vickery are popular writers on niche content. There are very few other journalists who cover the financial implications of football or South American football as well as these two.

They are more likely to succeed behind a paywall because there are very few other places you can go for similar writing. But this is a great loss to those who are yet to discover and enjoy the writings of Conn or Vickery.

Meanwhile Gabriele Marcotti, while one of the best writers around (in my view), writes on standard topics that generate thousands of column inches and opinion pieces. He would initially be missed, but there is more likely to be somebody out there who can fill the void.

Tough, isn’t it. I’d rather not have them.

written by Gary \\ tags: David Conn, football journalism, Gabriele Marcotti, paywalls, Tim Vickery