The BFD | Is Stuff Stuffed?

I admit that a number of uncharitable headlines sprang to mind when I was planning this article in my head. I could be the bigger person of course and pretend that I wasn’t getting a small degree of Schadenfreude from Stuff‘s plight but I am far too honest for that. I am enjoying their misfortune, and that uncharitable and quite frankly mean streak in me did not develop overnight.

The BFD: Stuff has put out the begging bowl, oh dear, how sad, never mind.

Before I was editor of The BFD I wrote for Whaleoil, the brainchild and blog baby of my husband Cameron Slater who was its editor for 15 years and who built it into the most popular blog site in New Zealand’s history.

Mainstream media and other blogs attacked Whaleoil for the following “sins.”

They claimed that some articles on the blog were paid for: “Cash for content” in other words, and that it was “dirty” and wrong to take money in exchange for articles. Whaleoil should not be allowed to make money by selling its services to those wanting to promote their agenda or services, said the Mainstream Media.
They wrote that people should boycott any advertisers who wanted to openly support Whaleoil because Whaleoil was “dirty” and so anyone who supported them should be targeted.
They incited their followers to complain en masse to Google about content on Whaleoil so that Google would cut off Whaleoil‘s only revenue stream.
They mocked Whaleoil whenever it asked for donations, referring to it as “putting out the begging bowl”, saying that it just proved that Whaleoil was not a business proposition as it was unable to support itself without asking for money from its supporters.

Because of the words and actions of mainstream media and other blogs Whaleoil was forced to adapt in order to survive. On at least 5 occasions the incited mass complaints about Whaleoil’s content resulted in Google taking away Whaleoil’s ad revenue which was substantial and paid all the bills. Google are almost impossible to contact and it would take 1-2 weeks to sort out the complaints and to get them to switch the ad revenue back on.

Cam realised that as good as the ad revenue was (due to Whaleoil’s huge readership), it could not be relied upon as a revenue source, as it could be taken away on the whim of Google, because of a frivolous complaint by a person who wished Whaleoil harm. As a result of that realisation, the subscription model was born. Unknowingly, the haters had pushed Cam to develop a revenue model that would keep a New Media business afloat if its ad revenue was suddenly cut off.

When I started The BFD I had three goals in mind.

1. That The BFD would never solicit donations as I wanted to start as I intended to finish: on a strictly business footing as a new media website, not a blog.

2. That we would rise or fall on a subscription model.

3. That we would view ad revenue as icing on the cake but would not count on it for any of the day to day running costs.

The lessons I had learned from my time working for Whaleoil had fortuitously future-proofed The BFD.

Ironically it is now the mainstream media like Stuff who are the ones no longer on a business footing, now reduced to putting out the begging bowl.

The BFD. Is Stuff still a business if it literally has to ask for donations to stay afloat?

Ironically it is a mainstream media blog, The Spinoff, which is now 100% cash for content in order to pay the bills.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I shouldn’t enjoy their situation but I do. Time and time again the MSM gave Whaleoil and my husband Cam Slater both barrels and they buzzed over Whaleoil‘s corpse like flies. They gloated over the private information stolen by the criminal Rawshark and published for financial gain by Nicky Hager. Cam and his friends and business associates were hounded by the media (in some cases out of their jobs). The media ran a non-stop 8 week-long “Dirty Politics” smear campaign with the intention of breaking both the blog and the man. They even camped outside our house.

Nope, I have no sympathy whatsoever to spare for the financial straits the MSM now find themselves in. While there are good and decent journalists out there who deserve my sympathy, the MSM companies themselves have nothing but my contempt.