A new wave of journalistic outlets are further blurring the line between entertainment and news. In an age where more children and young adults get more of their news from social media than anything else (according to a 2017 study by Common Sense Media), the future of hard journalism has been thrown into uncertainty. A new wave of crowdsourced news/entertainment blogs could be changing not just how news is consumed, but how it is written.
Chances are, if you regularly use social media, you’ve come across a few posts from friends promoting articles they’ve written for sites like The Odyssey Online or Society19. Instead of recruiting a select staff of specialized writers, these companies cast a wide net, accepting articles from a larger crowd of people and promoting the best or most popular to a central page. This new wave of news writing gives more young people a voice in a crucial time for journalism, but comes with its fair share of potential issues.
Articles for these sites are driven almost entirely by what receives the most traffic. Certain sites have sections where articles of a similar category are grouped together. While sometimes timely articles about current events gain enough popularity to be featured, the front page sections are most often comprised of softer pieces, whether about popular social topics or softer listicle pieces on relationships or personal issues. The popularity-driven aspect of these aggregates creates a strange, disconnected palate of views. Under The Odyssey Online’s “Politics” section, an article titled “Sorry People, But #BelieveWomen Is #UnAmerican” shares the page with another titled “It’s Hard To Stay Friends With A Kavanaugh-Lover, But It’s Possible.” Because of the crowdsourcing model of the site, where writers are recruited at universities across the country, completely contradictory opinions can share the stage. With the increasing bias of news sources towards one issue or another, this inconsistency could be a refreshing change but also could become jarring and prevent readers from gaining perspective on certain writers and their individual biases.
Kaylee Richard, a sophomore student at West Chester, is a member of West Chester’s 35-writer staff for the Odyssey. “The atmosphere is really laid back,” said Richard about her time writing for the site. “It’s fun writing advice and sharing stories.” She and her fellow writers are expected to write one to two articles a week for the Odyssey, which are then published under the West Chester community and promoted to more popular pages if they receive enough traffic. The articles can be about anything, but writers are encouraged to be attention-grabbing and avoid well-covered topics. These writers are not paid for their contributions unless they reach a certain view threshold, around 20,000 views, at which time they are given a small cash reward. This kind of payment system could present another change in journalism, as very few members of these companies are salaried, an overwhelming majority of the stories are written for free or a low one-time reward. While Odyssey does not have exclusive ownership over the stories contributors write, its contract states that it has a “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license” to any stories posted, meaning that it can profit off of and republish contributed articles without the consent of the writer.
However, most writers for these sites do so out of a desire for self-expression, not expecting to profit from their work. “It’s a thrill when you can hit refresh and see your page views go up and up and up,” said Richard, who recently wrote an article about fun fall dates that topped 40,000 views. With viral entertainment sites and applications like BuzzFeed and Snapchat becoming a major staple in the millennial news diet, these news aggregator sites may be a way for young adults to write relevant news that other young adults should see. Instead of continuing to try to reach millennials with news sources that many see as uninteresting or outdated, sites like the Odyssey and Society19 may be a way to use the public’s need for entertainment to inform them.
Brendan Lordan is a second-year student majoring in English writing. BL895080@wcupa.edu