Another publication outsources travel journalism to Demand Media

[Ed Wetschler]

Et tu, USA Today? And as journalists and/or public relations professionals, what is your reaction to this?

[Donna M. Airoldi]

I think the outsourcing depends on where the content comes from and how it's produced. A few people I know copy edit for Demand. After leaving TravelMuse last year I looked into writing and editing for the site. The pay at the time was beyond low ($3.25 per article edited; about $15 on average per article written) and the writing quality painfully poor. Topics were devised solely on SEO potential. Maybe they're doing a better job of sourcing and paying for travel content, but somehow I doubt it.

TravelMuse syndicated its articles to Tribune Media for the last few months before the travel-planning site decided to eliminate original content. I was reluctant for various reasons, but I didn't really have a choice in the matter, and in the end several of my former freelancers have told me that they landed new assignments because their articles appeared on the front page of the Sunday travel section at various Trib publications around the country through the syndication deal. Short term, it was good for them; long term, it's terrible for all freelancers. At least our pay rate was significantly better than Demand's, even though we couldn't pay typical print rates, which have eroded since then anyway.

[Ed Wetschler]

I'd encourage everyone to read Donna Airoldi's comments on this page. FYI, here's a link for more information: http://www.rosenblumtv.com/?p=4612

[Michael Luongo]

At first I was not sure whether to believe this or not, but then yesterday I got a press release from Demand Media about this...............I did a lecture on freelancing yesterday at the SPJ regional conference and I mentioned this as one of the terrible developments pushing quality and value down for freelancers.