Valleywag Writers Get Their Bonus… By Talking About The Bonus

So Gawker Media moves to a payment system for its bloggers that is part ‘flat fee for X posts per month,’ with a top up depending on the traffic you can get to each of your posts… something that we discover by reading the internal memo on Valleywag. A Gawker Media blog which is looking to stoke up it’s page count for the bonus.

Who said they don’t make them smart over in California?

Not surprisingly, this has lead to a lot of discussion about blogging and pay structures around the blog world.

In all honesty, as someone who does write quite a bit for blogs, I would never ever count on making a bonus to take a pay packet up to something that I would need to live on. While I understand from the management point of view that you want to drive the site, make sure people are committed and “do good work” (to quote Gus Grissom), I’ve never quite seen the point of having the fear of not being able to support your household if you don’t go the extra mile at work.

Of course, in the short term, it will work – anything can have overdrive for a limited period. But medium to long term, I feel there is more value to be derived in positive management, rather than focusing on squeezing the last drop of performance out of someone. It’s one reason I hated the corporate culture when I worked 9-5; the idea that although you were contracted to work to do ‘A’ but you were expected to do ‘A’ and ‘B’ just to be regarded as average. While it’s not clear from the Valleywag article, I hope that all the bloggers are on a good ‘base’ wage.