Valleywag fails to be outraged by Alex Petraglia, editor of Primotech, a US videogames-news site, claiming that CNET’s “ad sales team carries more weight than the editorial team.”
As Valleywag puts it: “Media companies don’t care about their writers. Reporters are nothing more than expendable, semi-skilled labor. Despite the chicken and the egg scenario (you can’t sell ads if there isn’t content, you can’t pay people to create content without ad sales), sales staff land the multimillion dollar deals that dictate everything from magazine cover themes to advertorial packages. You don’t need a bloody beheading to point out the disparity — just glance at the parking lot. All those Infiniti G37s belong to sales. Editorial is lucky to be cruising about in a used Ford Focus.”
On one level, they are right – editorial has never been as well paid as the sales side of publishing – however, there does seem to be a paradox in that everyone seems to agree that quality content is a key differentiator (both in publishing and PR) – yet no one seems to want to pay for it.