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Kim Voynar

By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com

The AOL Way: Insert Keywords, Barf Out “Content”

Update: I just added a response from Cinematical’s Deputy Editor Scott Weinberg, below.

Over on The Daily Beast, Dan Lyons offers a scathing analysis of the AOL/Huffington Post merger. Lyons quotes Gawker Media’s Nick Denton, who asked the question: “Is this a fearsome Internet conglomerate or simply a roach motel for once lively websites?”

There was a time when I would have said, “What’s the world coming to when Nick Denton is the arbiter of excellence?” But that’s a damn good question, Nick. There was a time when the Weblogs, Inc blog family and Denton’s sites were direct competitors, challenging each other to be the best, to hire the best, smartest, hottest, most motivated writers — sometimes back and forth from each other. It was an exciting time to be writing for the web. “Blogger” wasn’t even a household word yet, at least not in the sense it is now.

Weblogs got absorbed by the giant maw of AOL, and then for a while there Huffington Post seemed to be aiming to be that competitor, for all that I think their practice of not paying writers was abhorrent and utter bullshit. Now they’ve been absorbed into AOL too.

And that sucking sound you hear? Is the sound of dollars lining the pockets of Arianna Huffington’s designer pantsuit while other dollars are almost certainly going to be redirected away from writers currently at AOL and/or HuffPo. You don’t think for a minute no one’s going to lose their jobs over this happy-happy merger, do you? That the new AOL/HuffPo with Ms. Huffington at the editorial helm is just going to somehow absorb a bunch of writers writing duplicate content and pay everyone? No, I think not. Some people are likely to lose a paycheck, so that some other people can get richer. Same shit, different day in corporate America, kids.

What’s likely to be the biggest issue in this merger of Huffington Post with AOL, at least from the viewpoint of people who actually care about the relative intellectual value of “journalistic” content, is this: AOLs content — pretty much all of it — is driven not by what constitutes good journalism, but what will drive traffic.

This has been the case at AOL for a long time, probably before they bought Weblogs Inc and its 80+ blog properties, but definitely from the time that buyout happened and AOL started to focus more on being a “content provider.” Certainly it was my own experience working for them as a managing editor, film critic and blogger for Cinematical that on the AOL side of the fence, the focus was traffic, and stats, and traffic, and numbers, and traffic, and how to make those numbers bigger.

The thing is, Lyons is spot-on about this issue: You cannot, cannot CANNOT create good, compelling content when your sole, or even primary focus is traffic. Good writers want to write good content, but “good” in the world of corporations run by bean-counters and salesmen is not the same thing as “good” in the academic sense of what constitutes “good” writing. To AOL, bigger numbers = good, period. They don’t give a shit how they get those bigger numbers, or how great a story or a review or an interview is. So long as the traffic numbers are bigger and they aren’t getting sued, all is right in the AOL world.

In a way, AOL has much in common with the big studios in that both aim to hit the widest target range possible by firing a low-watermark scattershot that draws the biggest audience, without regard to whether what they are putting out is crap or not. And I mean “crap” objectively, at least to a degree, because I think there has to be some point at which thinking people of average intelligence can agree that there is some minimal standard below which is “crap.”

And yes, yes … I get that it’s necessary to find a way to monetize web content and that it’s all business, baby, but you have to start with good content first and build your traffic based on incenting your audience to come back because they LIKE what they are reading on your site. There should be some degree of at least trying to make something good, even great, beyond just the cold, hard “greatness” of “Hey,traffic on that piece on the Flavor of the Month’s tits and ass was great! Let’s have more of that!”

I’m not saying we never worried about traffic back in the pre-AOL days at Cinematical. Of course we tracked stories to see what readers responded to the most, and we got out there on a grassroots level and marketed the hell out of everything we wrote to get people to come to read it. But the focus was always, always on the content first. We covered as many fests as possible not because celebs were there but because the movies were there. I know, novel concept.

AOL does not get this. They are like a giant mindless robot that says “here are the keywords that have been getting big hits, write more of that.” And I am not making that up, folks. It’s right there in the leaked “The AOL Way” deck that was leaked by Business Insider. Let’s just call it “TAW,” shall we? It reads like a death knell of real journalism. Go on read it, I’ll wait. It’s a lot of slides … you might want to make a cup of tea first. Or maybe take a Xanax. Takes the edge off reading it a bit.

Back? Okay. Now I can’t speak to whether this TAW deck is the real deal or not, but I do know that it’s been up for a week now and Business Insider hasn’t taken it down, and I do know that AOL has more lawyers than you can shake a stick at (and no doubt they pay their legal team a hell of a lot more than they pay the people who work their asses of writing their content), so you can bet that if that memo was actually faked, AOLs legal team would have been all over it like flies on a manure pile and demanded that it be taken down because it was libelous. Only it can’t be libel if it’s, you know, true.

What I can speak to is my personal experience working for AOL after they acquired Cinematical, and the knowledge I gleaned of what was coming for Cinematical staffers as that awesome little movie site got sucked more and more into the big, bad, AOL machine. I read between the lines of every memo and conversation about traffic. I talked with Moviefone staffers about what things were like on that side of the fence.

I seethed with rage every time we were promised our writers would be paid more per post once we achieved “X” goal, only to achieve that goal and have the higher-ups move “X” again. And again. And again. And never pay the writers more, because so long as you keep moving the target, keep dangling that carrot from an ever-longer stick, you can suck the soul out of people and then can them when they get so demoralized they just can’t do it any more.

Our writers, frankly, could have made more money pulling espresso shots as Starbucks baristas — and had benefits and salaries, too! — but they kept writing for the same reason all real writers write: because we have to. Because like painters and sculptors and filmmakers and poets, all writers who are “real” writers at heart aspire to achieve some level of artistry with what we do. We may not always succeed at that goal with every piece we write, but we sure as hell aren’t ever going to achieve anything even resembling objectively good writing when we’re writing based on fucking keywords and the incontrovertible fact that boobs and sex and drug-addicted starlets drive traffic.

I’ve been asked, often, if I was ever told at Cinematical that I had to write a review a certain way based on whether the studio had an ad deal with AOL. I can honestly say I never was told directly to write a review a certain way, and if I had been I would have told someone to blow it out their grommet. I was, however, told we needed to give the higher ups a “heads up” if we were writing a negative review about certain films, because Moviefone has deals with all the studios, dontchaknow, not long before I bailed out of there. That was the writing on the wall.

To be perfectly clear: I don’t believe that anyone I worked with at Cinematical while I was there ever wrote a review to please a studio (a couple of our writers were actually blacklisted from studio set visits for negative reviews), and I don’t believe any of the current Cinematical staff has done so. But do I think this memo on TAW is indicative of what it’s really like to work for AOL on a daily basis? Hell yeah, I do. It’s why I left. There are some great writers there who’ve stuck it out a long time, and God bless Erik Davis and Scott Weinberg for not abandoning the ship and for fighting the good fight for so long. If I ever had to fight in a real battle, those are two guys I would want on my side. But it was obvious what AOL was doing and intended to do in the future.

Now, here’s the thing: when the AOL/Weblogs buyout was announced, the leads of all the Weblogs blogs were assured that AOL would keep their hands off our editorial policies and would not be dictating our content. Specifically, the Cinematical leads were assured, over and over again — even as AOL/Moviefone directly encroached on our editorial policies — that Cinematical would always remain a separate entity from Moviefone. Cinematical reviewed films, did so and does to this day with editorial and journalistic integrity. Moviefone did not and does not, it is a publicity machine fed by the studios.

AOL/Moviefone are a giant machine. Insert keywords, drive traffic, barf out whatever will minimally pass as content in order to do so. Pay people as little as you can possibly get away with.

Pay your editors a “salary,” but keep them as contractors so you don’t have to provide them with benefits, and then take per-post work away from the bloggers who are getting paid a few bucks per post — they were doing that before I even left, and I have no doubt there’s way more of that now and it’s not going to get better in the near future.

Build your brand with the sweat and labor and hard work of people desperate to get paid to write at all, make your big-ass bonuses, and to hell with what’s right or with treating people fairly. As for how it will all evolve under the editorial hand of Ms. Huffington, Christ, who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if the next innovation around AOL is to merge in this whole idea of persuading writers that it’s somehow a good thing for them to write for free. Yup, start selling that Kool-Aid, rebranded as The AOL Way. Make us rich with your work and your sweat so we can kick you to the curb with our very expensive Italian leather loafers when we’re done with you, oh bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, idealistic young writer!

Hey, if you can drive traffic up with keywords and simultaneously reduce what you’re paying your writers to a bare minimum, you can directly benefit the wallets of the people at the top of the heap! It’s trickle-up economics, people! Is that the real AOL Way? Now, who wants in on the ground floor of that opportunity?

*****

Note: I’ve added a response from Cinematical’s Deputy Editor Scott Weinberg, which he emailed me, below:

Kim, while I find several of your criticisms fair and valid, I wanted to take a minute to clarify something regarding film reviews at Cinematical. In my (rather lengthy) experience as the site’s Managing Editor (now Deputy Editor), I have never once been pressured, coerced, or chastised regarding our team’s film reviews. I’ve never been told to “go nicer” on a film, nor have I ever been criticized for publishing a negative review. The relationship between AOL Moviefone and Cinematical may not be a perfect one, but to imply (even indirectly) that our film reviews are not completely honest is simply wrong. I don’t think you intended to imply this, but it’s still an important issue to me. Think about what you know about Erik Davis and myself. Do you truly believe we’d stick with a site that TOLD us what to say in a film review? Or even hinted at it? We would not. Moviefone has always allowed Erik and I to handle the film reviews, as well as “fan rants” and editorials, as we see fit.

Our “corporate” bosses also approved my potentially controversial “MPAA bash” without reading it, because they trust us to write like professionals.

As I said, the line between Moviefone and Cinematical may be blurry, and even frustrating, in some cases, but it’s very important to me that people know our team is honest and trustworthy. — Scott Weinberg

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2 Responses to “The AOL Way: Insert Keywords, Barf Out “Content””

  1. jump houses says:

    I think the bounce house swollowed my son

  2. Java Jerri says:

    Not to change the subject but why is AOL still around. Shoot that horse.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon