[Op-Ed] The High Cost Of Shilling

If you’ve kept up on events in Comics Journalism, you may have seen more than one instance where Editors and Publishers of established sites have taken to soliciting donations from the reading audience to keep running. Why? There are a few reasons. None of them are good, and several were avoidable.

If you don’t know what I mean, here are a few examples:

From Chris Arrant, EiC of Popverse and former EiC of the now-defunct Newsarama

And another from Heidi MacDonald, EiC of The Comics Beat

Notice these announcements came out within a few days of each other, strongly indicating some coordination behind the scenes between the different news sites. Several analysts and pundits have speculated why a sudden need to start e-begging, but the simplest guess is probably the right one – readership is down, ad revenue rates are down, paid publisher sponsorships are well overdue, and overhead is too high.

There’s little anyone can do about ad rates, but every other point was predictable and avoidable.

Readership is down

Comics sites catering to reviews and journalism are reputation-based sources. A site will live and die by the willingness of its reading audience to trust what’s published. If the reading audience doesn’t believe what a site publishes, or worse, comes to believe what a site publishes is intentionally misleading, a site is doomed to only attract attention through outrageous shenanigans.

Sites like CBR, BleedingCool, and TheComicsBeat have developed a reputation for (at best) spin or (at worst) inflammatory half-truths to get attention. That strategy works to keep the Publishers happy and generate a short-term boost in traffic, but just like in The Boy Who Cried Wolf, eventually, readers will start to ignore the drama and miss when a meaningful article is published.

Paid Publisher Sponsorships Are Well Overdue

Can you spot the problem with that statement? That’s right. The same sites now e-begging for reader support have openly accepted paid sponsorships on the very Publishers their journalism is meant to report on. The problem with this statement is twofold.

First, a site that reports on Publishers cannot maintain a reputation of ethics and credibility when accepting money from those same Publishers. The conflict of interest inherent in that practice is glaring. How can you trust a site to accurately and fairly report on the happenings within Marvel Comics when Marvel is paying part of the bills? Can you trust a site to honestly review a comic and not shill for a Publisher in exchange for comps (free comics) and access to inside information? No, you can’t.

Second, a sponsor who doesn’t pay their bills is not a sponsor any site should be doing business with. That means whoever is running the business relationships at the sites reliant on Publisher money isn’t doing their job. Any reader’s money sent in to keep a site going is sent into mismanaging hands.

The Overhead Is Too High

In any business, it’s a bad idea to spend more than you make. CBR, the GamesRadar menu formerly known as Newsarama, and TheComicsBeat are not only asking for money but for workers willing to put the time in for little or no pay. That’s a clear sign that their operations and salaries cost more than the sites bring in. Again, money management is in mismanaging hands.

The Ugly Conclusion

The sites you now see begging for money and volunteer workers have set themselves up for failure with years worth of money mismanagement, poor business sense, and questionable ethics. Does that mean these sites are doomed to crumble away? Not necessarily, but it does mean a turnaround is much harder, and 2023 may be the end for some.

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