An Incomplete History of Forbes as a Platform for Scams, Grift and Bad Journalism (niemanlab.org) 31
Joshua Benton, writing for NiemanLab: If you need a refresher: The Gordon Gecko 1980s and NASDAQ-boom 1990s were both very good to Forbes, but things started to drift downward in the 2000s, both in print and in the new world online. When the financial crisis hit, there were cuts and layoffs and, for the first time, a non-Forbes hired to run the place, Mike Perlis. He and chief product officer Lewis D'Vorkin came up with a revival strategy that just screams early 2010s digital media: It's all about scale, baby, scale. Forbes' staff of journalists could produce great work, sure. But there were only so many of them, and they cost a lot of money. Why not open the doors to Forbes.com to a swarm of outside "contributors" -- barely vetted, unedited, expected to produce at quantity, and only occasionally paid?
As of 2019, almost 3,000 people were "contributors" -- or as they told people at parties, "I'm a columnist for Forbes." Let's think about incentives for a moment. Only a very small number of these contributors can make a living at it -- so it's a side gig for most. The two things that determine your pay are how many articles you write and how many clicks you can harvest -- a model that encourages a lot of low-grade clickbait, hot takes, and deceptive headlines. And many of these contributors are writing about the subject of their main job -- that's where their expertise is, after all -- which raises all sorts of conflict-of-interest questions. And their work was published completely unedited -- unless a piece went viral, in which case a web producer might "check it more carefully." All of that meant that Forbes suddenly became the easiest way for a marketer to get their message onto a brand-name site. And since this strategy did build up a ton of new traffic for Forbes -- publishing an extra 8,000 pieces a month will do that! -- lots of other publications followed suit in various ways.
As of 2019, almost 3,000 people were "contributors" -- or as they told people at parties, "I'm a columnist for Forbes." Let's think about incentives for a moment. Only a very small number of these contributors can make a living at it -- so it's a side gig for most. The two things that determine your pay are how many articles you write and how many clicks you can harvest -- a model that encourages a lot of low-grade clickbait, hot takes, and deceptive headlines. And many of these contributors are writing about the subject of their main job -- that's where their expertise is, after all -- which raises all sorts of conflict-of-interest questions. And their work was published completely unedited -- unless a piece went viral, in which case a web producer might "check it more carefully." All of that meant that Forbes suddenly became the easiest way for a marketer to get their message onto a brand-name site. And since this strategy did build up a ton of new traffic for Forbes -- publishing an extra 8,000 pieces a month will do that! -- lots of other publications followed suit in various ways.
Forbes Top Ten Headlines. Number 5 is AMAZING! (Score:2)
You know who else followed suit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Our dear friends, the wonderful and talented, the editors who won't edit.
Just this summary: There's no middle or end to it, no actual summarising. Just the laziest of the lazy copy/paste actions, simply the first two paragraphs of the article.
Same as all the other summaries, and for a cherry on top, a clickbait headline.
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Not so fast Mr. AC (Score:1)
https://www.bbc.com/news/busin... [bbc.com]
The company sold a "controlling interest" to a Hong Kong investment firm. If you've been keeping up with current events as of late, HK is still independent.
So 95% owned by the CCP is incorrect.
Re:Not so fast Mr. AC (Score:5, Insightful)
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When did Hong Kong ever have "western freedoms"? Certainly not under the British! You know where the Chinese got the idea to use triad gangsters against protesters? That's right, the British did that.
Ever ask Hong Kongers what they think of mainlanders? They call them "cockroaches". Or how about the legal slavery of domestic helpers from Indonesia and Philippines?
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Or a paid propagandist.
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If you've been keeping up with current events as of late, HK is still independent.
Is this some sort of joke? Beijing just recently closed the Apple Daily, Stand News, DB Channel and Citizen News. Free press in HK is gone.
Old news (Score:4, Insightful)
Conspiracy nuts have been using Forbes blogs like this to lend some credibility to their nutjobbery and snake oil for many years now. For those who don't know that basically anyone can get an account there and that a forbes domain should carry about as much legitimacy as a wordpress or blogspot domain, it can fool them...and these are exactly the kind of gullible suckers they're after.
Hmm ... (Score:2)
As of 2019, almost 3,000 people were "contributors" -- or as they told people at parties, "I'm a columnist for Forbes."
My thinks the blogger protests too much. Perhaps he's been ignored by the subject of his contempt and it should be 3,001? :-)
I will congratulate him, though, on this accomplishment listed in his NiemanLab Bio [niemanlab.org]:
He wrote his first HTML in January 1994.
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As of 2019, almost 3,000 people were "contributors" -- or as they told people at parties, "I'm a columnist for Forbes."
My thinks the blogger protests too much. Perhaps he's been ignored by the subject of his contempt and it should be 3,001? :-)
I will congratulate him, though, on this accomplishment listed in his NiemanLab Bio [niemanlab.org]:
He wrote his first HTML in January 1994.
Interesting how I also didn't recognize the name NiemanLab and found the layout of the article a bit testing. Did some quick searches and came up with them having been featured before: https://slashdot.org/index2.pl... [slashdot.org] NiemanLabs being the product of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] the author being founder and director 2008-2020 https://www.niemanlab.org/auth... [niemanlab.org] and decided for myself that this seems like a legit site that I've just failed to not
Too Common (Score:3)
It's hard to think of any "reputable source" that hasn't fallen into the more-clicks-at-all-cost trap.
Actually, it's getting harder and harder to think of anything as a "reputable source".
Re:Too Common (Score:4, Interesting)
It's hard to think of any "reputable source" that hasn't fallen into the more-clicks-at-all-cost trap.
We still have the NYT, WSJ, and BBC.
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I nominate Ars Technica, NPR, and Reuters for the list.
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Bloomberg News (not some of the other stuff) probably belongs on there as well.
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Reading the news is about discerning the facts and maki
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I wish I had mod points so I could flag that as funny.
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ok, but you haven't proved anything.
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Neither have you, comedian.
The bad journalism started long before (Score:2)
Remember SCO? Forbes took their side. The magazine has been a wreck since Steve Forbes put his stamp on it.
Cue the CueCat (Score:2)
New cancel target? (Score:2)
I know forbes has been posting raw video of senate meetings that aren't painting the left in a good light at all.
So they're going after Forbes now? Seems convenient. I'm not saying the statement is without merit, I'm just saying the timing is suspiciously convenient.
Let me remind you (Score:3)
Their editor-in-chief: Steve Forbes was one of the signatory members of the Project for the New American Century [wikipedia.org], that was behind the invasion of Iraq and that whole shameful chapter of recent history.
That is, the PNAC had lobbied for invading Iraq during the Clinton era, and took seats in the government under GWB. (They had chosen GWB as their front-man, not the other way around.)
Credibility? (Score:1)
People still think Forbes is credible brand name?? I'll have to ask around, but I'm pretty sure no one under the age of 40 finds anything about Forbes credible. I don't care who you are, or what level of credibility you have as an individual. If you publish an article in Forbes, it has zero credibility. They haven't been a good source of any kind of information in well over a decade.
These contributors that they say they always stay above board and don't do any of the shady things... stop contributing to For