One of the leading media houses in Switzerland, the Tamedia Group, is testing since February of this year a new compensation model for part of its online journalists (about 30 for the time being): these authors shall get a bonus of some hundred Swiss francs per quarter for the most clicked (actually not read) articles, whereby team written articles shall also benefit.
In addition to this, the journalist with the highest number of clicks is paid 800 francs per trimester, whilst CHF 500 and CHF 300 are paid to the journalist coming in as second and third. Entire teams will benefit from a bonus of CHF 1'500 if they were able to increase the total number of clicks compared with the previous month.
With these monetarian incentives, the Tamedia Group intends to motivate its online journalists to make "dry news agency releases" more attractive for its readers. These journalists should be motivated to present somewhat bulky but important news materials in such a way that readers (or actually clickers) perceive it better and recognize its significance. The drawbacks of this new compensation are obvious: online journalists might be tempted to think short term by e.g. putting up lurid headlines or selecting shrill content that just boost the clicks.
Comparable models payment models have been practised since quite some time in the United States and Europe. There, different media groups have developed performance-oriented pay models over the past few years. The Gawker website, which had recently been discontinued due to an expensive legal dispute, paid to so-called recruits USD 5 per 1'000 visits, so some of these recruits were able to attract up to 1,25 mio. clicks. The recruits were obligated to comply with the publishing guidelines of the website, and not only to go for a short-term maximization of visitors' traffic.
Two years ago, the stock exchange platform thestreet.com created a model according to which a journalist receives USD 50 dollars for an article when he records 60'000 page views within one week. A similar approach was taken by a regional newspaper in Wales (heavily protested by local unions by the way).
For five years, the U.S. American business journal «Forbes» choses a more differentiated path. Not only the clicking of articles counted, but customer satisfaction should also play a role: when a consumer calls for an article from the author within one month, this visit is compensated by 20 times compared with a first visit. Based on this model, one journalist was able to cash in around USD 100'000 in 2012.
There is only little research available on the effect and consequences of "performance-based" wage models for journalists, since this was an edge phenomenon so far, what may however change as one of the largest Swiss media group starts to test the waters.
The pressure on journalists to keep track of the quantitative success of their work increases, regardless of whether such data have a direct impact on the pay. Indirectly, quantitative factors already characterize journalistic work. The digitalization of the journalist profession in the online age has changed the rules thoroughly, as almost any number of data is available real time to assess the editorial work (at least) numberwise.
(Rough translation of an article published in Neue Zürcher Zeitung over this weekend)
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
