Way to go LHJ for doing the right thing at the right time!
Unlike Redbook that brought in bloggers paying them with “exposure” that they didn’t need (they need to pay grocery bills) LHJ is going to pay their readers/bloggers who are now also content providers, a professional rate for their services.
Thank you Ad Age for breaking this very, VERY important story and setting this positive action in media motion. Paying bloggers fixes the problem that was unsustainable, i.e. a publication making money, yet the blogger gets nothing. At some point the entire economic system breaks down, not to mention trust and respect.
Starting with the March issue, LHJ editors will cull much of the magazine’s material from posts on DivineCaroline.com, a sibling at Meredith Corp. that lets consumers upload their own stories, as well as from the magazine’s website, its Facebook page and other digital channels.
The magazine will still use fact-checkers and include experts in fields such as medicine and beauty, but it will start with consumers where it can. “We really flipped this model,” said Editor-in-Chief Sally Lee. “Usually content creation begins with an editor. We have content creation that begins with a reader.”
Unlike the Huffington Post, where many bloggers post without pay, Ladies’ Home Journal won’t tell its amateur writers to settle for the exposure. “We are going to pay them our professional rates,” Ms. Lee said.
This also signals the beginning of where “women are the will” is more than Purse String Theory… by providing the content for women’s magazines (currently 100 out of 132 major mags are focused on women) the advertising wrapped around that content and the respective products will begin to morph to meet the written expectations. You can’t have an article on how toxic baby toys are messing with kids’ brains and then sell toys that created the problems on the same page. (but that’s another post…)
Today, let’s just celebrate that women’s work is being recognized, valued, and PAID for. In my mind, this is right up there with getting the right to vote; it’s balancing the buyer/seller equation where everyone wins and women’s values are on the surface instead of buried behind an editorial checklist.
