DOT-COM DREAMS - JULY/AUGUST 2000

July/August 2000 | Contents

DOT-COM DREAMS

I. BRAIN DRAIN JUST A LEAK NOW

BY ANNE COLAMOSCA

The shadow of a shakeout is beginning to appear in the journalistic corner of the dot-com world. A year ago, traditional journalism seemed almost old hat, not Red Hat. But after the Nasdaq began a sickening slide back March 10, after it deepened in May, the dot-com landscape suddenly seemed full of blind alleys.

"In the wee small hours of the morning, it starts to grab. Will I be out on the street next week? Will I be able to make it back to the safety I left behind?" That's what a journalist who left a traditional media company for the Web recently told his friend, a midwestern magazine editor. Migrants to the Web in all fields are a bit nervous these days, but reporters and editors appear to have particular cause for concern, since a business model that promises profits for dot-com journalism has yet to be found. Some independent dot-com companies seem to be burning through their investors' capital at a rapid rate. Even at most sites put up by large media companies, profits remain elusive.

"There's a definite change from a year ago, when job-hopping from old media to new media probably peaked," says Dan Rohn, a former Washington Post copy editor who founded JournalismJobs.com, which lists jobs in both old and new media. "Since then, old media companies have given stock options and increased benefits and salaries. Veteran staff people are, in many cases, sitting still."

Still, JournalismJobs.com has seen "the number of dot-com jobs fluctuate widely . . . often reflecting the swings of the stock market," Rohn says. To be sure, the dot-coms are still hungry. At Columbia University's School of Journalism, thirty-six dot-com companies took part in the year 2000 annual "job fair," up from six the year before. And they tended to offer higher salaries than other outlets, according to Melanie Huff, the school's career services coordinator.

Meanwhile, at some sites, a hunt is under way for established journalists with something resembling star quality. "In the entertainment field, which I cover, the dot-coms are going after high-profile journalists with established contacts who could serve as rainmakers," says Robert Levine, a senior editor at New York magazine who formerly worked at HotWired, an online publication. "The dot-coms very much need these people right now to help raise venture capital money."

But on the whole it's getting somewhat harder for the Web to drain experienced brains. "Right now, I would be strongly disinclined to go back to an Internet job," says New York's Levine. "The whole Internet world is very cyclical and we seem to be going into a down cycle right now. I very much liked what I did online. But it's nice to be back in traditional media, where you can at least keep chaos at bay."

Other journalists point out that corporate media giants offer safety, good salaries, and huge opportunities these days. "At Time Warner there are so many new projects being developed internally, as a result of the proposed AOL merger," says Adam Stoltman, who until recently was a feature photography editor at Sports Illustrated. "My sense is that staffers are not looking very hard at the independent dot-com world right now. There are too many things going on at Time." On his very popular MediaNews site (poynter.org/ medianews), Jim Romenesko reported in May that three Fortune writers recently turned down jobs at Line56.com, a financial site -- offers said to be at least $50,000 above their Time Warner salaries.

Despite signs of a dot-com slowdown, few journalists are wishing aloud for a pre-Internet world. The "good old days" were marked by stagnant wages and limited opportunities. The last few years have seen solid wage growth and an unprecedented, vibrant cross-pollination of editorial work on the Internet, magazines, cable TV stations, and newspapers.

And the Web still gives rise to dreams of independence and quality. This May, Adam Stoltman left his Sports Illustrated job to manage his own photojournalism-heavy site, Journal E ("Real Stories From Planet Earth"). He and a partner, Alan Dorow, spent four years developing it.

"We've watched the mania, and the venture capital money pour into dot-coms in huge amounts, and now see some of the mania on the downside," Stoltman says. "Our strategy has been to move cautiously like the tortoise and develop content we really love." That's a strategy that remains open to journalists almost no matter what happens to venture capital flows or the Nasdaq. *

Anne Colamosca's last piece for cjr was about the increasing use of stock options in the news business, in the May/June issue. She is a former Business Week staff writer and co-author, with William Wolman, of The Judas Economy.