Gawker pays money to “tipsters”
It was a busy day at Gawker Media, which just introduced a new, “tiered†commenting system, so I was cutting our conversation short when Denton wrote, “Oh, one other little thing.†Yes? “By bringing back pageview pay, we also open up the possibility of web-style checkbook journalism.†By that, he meant paying tipsters for the pageviews generated by posts based on their tips, which is something he briefly tried last year, offering $7.50 per 1,000 views.
Denton noted that Gawker paid $10,000 for the original version of a Faith Hill photograph that appeared on the cover of Redbook with extensive retouching. “Worth it?†I asked him. “Definitely!†he said. “Probably 2m pageviews.â€
