Will an ad network work for your news website? Or are you just going to have...

 
 

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via OJR on 1/7/11

By Robert Niles: One of the toughest challenges that new journalism entrepreneurs face is: Do I have to sell my own ads? The journalism industry's traditional ethical "wall" dividing advertising and editorial has left some journalists so frightened by the idea of selling to potential advertisers that they choose not even to try launching their own news websites. Few of us wish to comprise our journalistic integrity by having to sell ads. But selling ads shouldn't comprise your integrity - it's selling your editorial which does that. If potential customers think that they're getting both for the price of one - well, you'll just have to set them straight, won't you? (Check out our series on selling ads ethically here and here and here for help.) If you're worried what your fellow journalists will think, well, don't. Here's my new ethical rule: Journalists who've found an active source of customer income (from ads, subscriptions, grants, contributions or whatever) in the post-mainstream-media world don't have to listen to complaints from those who haven't. Ethical concerns now put aside, new publishers face a more compelling concern in selling ads: Time. The checklist a start-up news publisher confronts is daunting. Everything that a news entrepreneur can off-load onto someone else frees time for other important tasks. In an ideal situation, a news entrepreneur would be able to outsource her ad sales to a network, such as Google's AdSense. But ad networks don't work for every website. The division between sites which make significant amounts of money from ad networks and those which do not is not random. Several identifiable characteristics determine whether you'll be one of those who can leave the ads to an outside service, or if you'll be among those publishers who'll just have to reserve time each day for ad sales.

 
 

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