Update: Don't Confuse Two Journal Register Papers
Matt DeRienzo, publisher of the Register Citizen, left a comment and called to make sure that we (and you all) were not conflating the two papers we wrote about earlier today.
The Journal Register Company owns both the Register Citizen and the Morning Journal, and both papers have lately tried experiments with opening up their newsrooms and encouraging locals to blog.
DeRienzo writes:
I can’t speak to The Morning Journal. But if you look at the newspaper where I serve as publisher, The Register Citizen, which you reference in this post, we have dramatically INCREASED the amount of money we spend on freelance over the past two years, and on the newsroom in general. That’s an important point, because it deflates both the statement hat “you can’t make money off writing anymore,” and that we have somehow cut funding for freelance and are asking people to do stuff for free instead.
Important to note, too, that “What we’re doing is more of a Google model than the Apple model.* We’re not asking to own any of this content.” Both papers, not just the Register Citizen, let their writers keep the ad revenue (if any) that Google sends to the newly-minted scribes.
We still say that Skoch’s words were ill-chosen. But (in case you were confused) those words have nothing to do with the Register Citizen!
*We’re now prepared for the call from an Apple spokesperson…bring it on.
