An Artifice of Integrity: The Death of Examiner.com
What once was one of the Internet’s most promising up-and-coming properties has announced they will be ceasing operations on or around July 10th. Examiner.com, which consisted of numerous locally-oriented sub-domains and relied on citizen journalists for content has decided to shutter due to low revenue, a tainted brand, and ultimately, excelling at proving why professional journalism is still an important element of society, even in the Internet age.
Examiner.com always existed under the artifice that it was something much bigger, and much more significant than it ever actually was. The name itself was an exercise in hoping people would mistaken it for a legitimate news source that was larger and older than its true history or reach. The 150-year-old daily newspaper The San Francisco Examiner registered the domain Examiner.com in 1994. Then ten years later when the paper was acquired by Clarity Digital Media, so was the domain. In 2006, David Schafer—the former manager of Mapquest and CEO of Clarity at the time—decided to take the domain from a San Francisco-based online property to a locally-focused network of subdomains covering news and how-to topics across the country.
Examiner.com continued to transform and acquire similar locally-oriented content farm-style properties until 2009, when the basic structure of the network of locally-based blogs took shape into the Examiner.com we know today.
During the format’s height in 2010, the separate local Examiner.com domains combined logged some 60 million pageviews. But this number was somewhat misleading since no single subdomain received nearly that much traffic. Bands, music artists, local business, or whomever was featured on the format would proudly share on their social media, “Hey, we were featured on Examiner.com!” as if this was their big moment. But the reality was their moment was isolated to one of hundreds of locally-oriented Examiner.com subsets that may or may not be receiving any significant traffic at all.
And then came 2010, when Google significantly downgraded Examiner.com due to the rampant inaccuracies in their articles, and the lack of editorial oversight of its contributors. Google purposely limited the visibility of content farms like Examiner.com in favor of more reliable websites. The result was a 79% drop in visibility on search engines for Examiner.com, causing the traffic (and revenue) to the format to plummet. Wikipedia also moved to block links to Examiner.com articles, citing the unreliability of content.
The Examiner.com business model was built on citizen journalism, or what some called pro-am journalism. Though this seemed enticing or even noble to some at the time, it was basically a cover to recruit cheap labor to produce large volumes of content for the blog network while keeping overhead low. The format strongly encouraged contributors, “Don’t quit your day job,” yet paid them just enough to give them hope that maybe someday they could use their writing as a sole revenue source if they just worked hard enough or posted a viral story. Contributors were paid in a “black box” model, or per-click, which financially rewarded click-baiting and sensationalized content, while no significant editorial help or system of checks and balances was in place to help keep contributors in line.
Ultimately as the format was losing credibility and traffic, nobody was making enough money, so the parent company loaded up Examiner.com pages with an egregious amount of ads, including multiple video streaming ads that would sometimes play on top of each other, while pop ups stood in the way of readers trying to press pause just so they could focus on the content of the article. Sites like Examiner.com inadvertently encouraged Internet users to load up on ad blocking apps and plugins, not just eliminating the revenue from Examiner.com, but eroding the entire free/ad supported model of the Internet.
Eventually Examiner.com came to symbolize everything that was wrong with online publishing: excessive ads, spurious content, no accountability, and a culture of baiting for clicks to keep a dying business model afloat. In January of 2014 Examiner.com was acquired by live promoter AEG, and was partnered closely with its other media property AXS. But no amount of finagling could keep Examiner.com from its fate.
None of the aforementioned issues with Examiner.com should take away from the few, if not many citizen journalists that did take their roles on the format seriously, did produce substantive content, and tried to serve their local communities in their specific field of interest in a positive manner. But the high-profile cases of rampant impropriety were enough to turn both readers and content curators like Google away from the blog network for good.
In 2007, Examiner.com contributor Sharon Gray was accused of plagiarizing numerous periodicals for her Examiner content. Eventually Gray’s large volume of contributions was removed from the site, but not after it stained the reputation of Examiner.com moving forward, and exposed the inherent flaws of the site’s approach. As the executive editor for Examiner.com said at the time, “They’re blogs. They don’t get edited. We don’t give any direction to people on what to write in their blogs. And that’s standard operating procedure.”
Even a site like Saving Country Music was forced to interface with the artifice of integrity Examiner.com presented. In February of 2014, an Examiner.com article accused the organizers of the Outlaw Music Hall of Fame of lying about their not-for-profit status, and other fallacies. Though the Outlaw Hall of Fame eventually went defunct (possibly in part due to the negative publicity from Examiner.com,) the way it was presented on Examiner.com was completely uninformed and inaccurate. The same writer later accused Saving Country Music of spreading rumors in the death of Shooter Jennings’ manager Jon Hensley, and actively worked to cover up the nature of Hensley’s death.
Beyond all the issues with the Examiner.com, the implosion of the format and its large number of sub-sites is also yet another sign of the implosion of the American blog in favor of more traditional and professional journalism that has finally migrated online, new journalism that still tries to hold to certain standards like Buzzfeed and Vice, and viral content farms that solely rely on Facebook to generate traffic. Facebook doesn’t police the quality of content like Google and other search engines.
All this is happening while Facebook has now become the #1 referral site on the internet for websites, surpassing Google. Ironically, it’s a lot of the Facebook-based content farms that likely learned some of their tricks from Examiner.com that were ferrying away so many readers from Examiner, and now present an even more sinister face to modern online journalism.
Examiner.com will soon be gone, and it would be counted as a victory if it wasn’t being replaced by something arguably even worse, as are the majority of the independently-owned blogs that comprised the nascent content for the internet. Yet it proves that in the long run, reliability and integrity are still integral to successful journalism.
Lunchbox
July 6, 2016 @ 8:45 am
integrity doesn’t exist anymore
Mike W.
July 6, 2016 @ 10:09 am
I disagree to an extent, I think plenty of reputable print and online news sites still have integrity and are creating great work. The problem is that a lot of Americans only want to hear what they want to hear. So you have web sites that actively cater to them and will print or post whatever lies they can come up with, all in the guise of telling you the “real story”. Look at some of the subject matter on Gawker or Breitbart and it is plain as day that editorial has mandated to slant the news however they can to appease their audience. The same is true in much less important arena’s, like the hacks over at CMT or Taste of Country in comparison to this site. It would be nice if more Americans and people in general only supported fair and reputable news sources, but more than ever before it sure seems there is a lot of “confirmation bias” running throughout America. And it’s damn sad.
Janice Brooks
July 6, 2016 @ 8:53 am
Sharing with my obituary group.
Tezca
July 6, 2016 @ 10:30 am
Bleh a part of me kinda feels like saying I told you so or something to all those who believe that reporter from examiner.com and went after you during the whole Hensley thing last year but for the most part I don’t want to get down to a juvenile level. I always thought you were the honest, objective journalist and everything when that happen and you were trying to pay respects like anyone else would. It was sad what happened. And sorry I got a bit off topic.
Matty T
July 6, 2016 @ 1:20 pm
I had no idea about the problems within the site but I will say I read some fantastic interviews on that website with some great srtists who dont always get a lot of press.
Trigger
July 6, 2016 @ 3:36 pm
There is no doubt that there were some great writers for Examiner, and some great stories about worthy artists, albums, local business, etc., and I tried to iterate that in the article. But the problem with the Examiner model is without checks or balances, and assembling what were basically personal blogs under one brand, a few bad apples could spoil the bunch. If you roll up on a personal blog, you know what you’re getting into. If you pull up “Examiner,” you expect it to be a reliable news source, and when it isn’t, it sullies the whole brand.
I feel bad for the folks that labored away on the format and now don’t have a home. But the reality is most of the best writers moved on from Examiner years ago because they figured out real fast that they weren’t getting anywhere on it, and that the reputation was poor.
Amanda
July 6, 2016 @ 6:39 pm
Thanks for covering this.
I published articles through Examiner for a number of years. It certainly didn’t make me any money, pennies to be exact, but the opportunities left an imprint on my world. I had the chance to be on the CMA red carpet, attend shows, and interview some of my favorite artists. It was a fun time, but journalism has significantly changed since. Suddenly all articles were basically embedded tweets and click bait – which is why I appreciate this site so much. There’s integrity and content that matters.
Trigger
July 7, 2016 @ 8:28 am
I’m glad you got those opportunities and memories Amanda, if you never made much money. But I always insist that free access to music and events is never payment enough for someone’s time to write about music. It’s like paying musicians with “exposure.” If folks are good at what they do, they deserve to be fairly compensated. The access and free music should be a perk.
Marc Stern
July 7, 2016 @ 2:19 am
At least I know what happened after 630 articles. The least they could have done was put something up on their website or they could have tried to alert their writers. But, no, just pull the plug one day and leave us wondering.
Thanks for the article describing things there. Quite honestly, I tried to be a “real journalist” while writing for them. I was there at the start in 2009 and have continued for the whole shooting-match. The way they went out tells me something about the culture there.
I’d like to thank your writer for acknowledging that there are some excellent writers/journalists on the site, but, I guess they were the rarity. My own background is one of journalism. I studied it in as my minor in college and practiced it for more than half-a-century, one way or another, mostly with freelance work for dailies and magazines. I guess a few folks in the auto world know my byline and if you do recognize it I thank you.
I do know that I tried to retain my integrity and I believe I did. I honestly hated the ads that kept on popping up.
Maybe I should have realized that when I wrote for Associated some years ago that the citizen-journalist was doomed to failure on the Internet. I can see where there’s just too much chance for compromise and other shenigans.
Well, it’s off to other venues — the patch.com, oppositelock.com to name a couple. I didn’t make a heck of a lot on the examiner.com (I think my biggest month was — ready for this — $15.50 or so, so I really won’t miss all the huge “income.” Let’s see if I lived to be 150 and published about 60 articles per month, I’d still be behind the 8-ball.
Nice piece, folks and thanks for the head’s up.
Lori
February 15, 2017 @ 11:10 pm
I was one of the many writers left out there, as well. If I had known more, I would have downloaded every single article (copy and paste, screenshots, SOMETHING) in order to have record for future jobs. Now all I have is a claim. It may as well be a fart in the wind!
Mark
July 7, 2016 @ 6:37 am
“Google purposely limited the visibility of content farms like Examiner.com in favor of more reliable websites. ”
horrible.
Google, a privately owned entity, shouldn’t be determining what we do and don’t see.
getting work out of people for nothing is an expanding business model. Mike Elk , In These Times
“As unpaid internships become the norm among a new generation of workers, more and more employers are finding interesting ways to classify those working for them as “non-employees” who don’t need to be paid ”
Caused at least partly by economic bad times, and people with no choice.
In music, it results in things like musicians paying venues, to play there. Not uncommon these days. Read an article the other day, where bands were paying 1000 dollars to play at a festival, also had to sell certain amount of tickets.
Mike W.
July 7, 2016 @ 7:41 am
The counter argument is that Google, a private company, can show or not show whatever they want. There are plenty of Internet search engines including Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.
I’m not sure why people think that Google or Facebook or Apple are not allowed to “censor” content or exclude content from their services, should they so choose. They are private companies that can basically do whatever they want. If you don’t like it, use another website or (in this case) search engine.
Mark
July 7, 2016 @ 8:21 am
They can’t do whatever they like, they are a regulated utility, they must operate in the public good.
“WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to regulate broadband Internet service as a public utility, a milestone in regulating high-speed Internet service into American homes.
Tom Wheeler, the commission chairman, said the F.C.C. was using “all the tools in our toolbox to protect innovators and consumers” and preserve the Internet’s role as a “core of free expression and democratic principles.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/technology/net-neutrality-fcc-vote-internet-utility.html?_r=0
None of them should have the right to decide who watches what.
Censorship, private or public, undermines freedom, harms democracy, makes it impossible for citizens to make informed decisions and in the end can cause great harm.
Mike W.
July 7, 2016 @ 11:45 am
Google is not a regulated utility. The Internet might be, but Google is NOT the internet. It is a big player, yes, and it is a powerful force, yes….but you have plenty of other options to use other search engines if you feel Google is being unfair. I listed just a handful of them before. Is Google under certain regulations? Sure, as every company in America is and every BIG company in America is. That being said, Google has taken down “revenge porn” cases and has taken down links to illegal downloads of movies, music, etc. Them taking down links to the Examiner, when that company has been caught plagiarizing it’s material in the past, is well within what they usually do. Until Google is bought out by the Government or is recognized as a monopoly, they are not a true public good. If you don’t like Google’s censorship, you can always use alternative search engines.
Trigger
July 7, 2016 @ 8:41 am
Look, I hate Google, for many many reasons. You don’t know the half of it. If folks knew all the work I have to put in on the back end of a site like Saving Country Music just to keep it going, they’d be floored, and Google has been directly responsible for nearly bankrupting this site.
But I am 100% behind Google’s efforts to keep the internet a place with good, reliable content, free of excessive ads, free of plagiarism (which Saving Country Music has been a victim of), and networks like Examiner.com that do not hold writers to even basic standards. The reason Facebook has taken over Google is because they don’t hold anyone to any standards. That is why it has become the Wild West, with not just slanted and non-factual reporting running rampant, but downright illegal practices with content farms churning out plagiarized works, and T-Shit seller making tons of money off of unauthorized merchandise. At some point Facebook is going to have to clean up the act, just like Google did in 2010, or the entire format will implode with lawsuits. Google sees the value of keeping the internet and upstanding place, even if they are self-serving in many of their practices. Facebook is a greedy, profit-driven wasteland that is getting worse by the minute.