Published 10 January 201012 May 2010 · Main Posts the future of online journalism Jeff Sparrow The web is, don’t you know, going to save that endangered species, the newspaper. At least, that’s the theory — and, of course, the model that everyone’s looking to is the Huffington Post, Ariana Huffington’s phenomenally successful bloggy-papery thing. Almost all the commercial online publications in Australia look increasingly Huffington-like: have a glance, for instance, at News Corps’ Punch. Huffpo generated such excitement because it seemed to have achieved the impossible: establishing a commercially successful online outlet, publishing serious and even vaguely progressive content. The problem is that, the closer you look, the more illusory the achievement seems. The parody frontpage really nails it, I think: the Huffpo model rests upon aggregating content from other sources (in a way that’s clearly not sustainable more broadly, since somebody has to actually, like, write the damn stuff), generating most of its traffic through tabloid trash (naked celebs, etc) rather than its serious articles, and convincing sundry filmstars, rock singers and other celebrities to blog for free. Huffpo is now probably sufficiently hegemonic to remain viable. But one doubts very much whether the same thing can be said for its legion of imitators. At the end of the day, if online journalism has a future, someone is going to have to come up with a model that actually pays journalists to produce content that people want to read, rather than just getting mad clicks through naked film stars. Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow is a Walkley Award-winning writer, broadcaster and former editor of Overland. More by Jeff Sparrow › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 28 March 202428 March 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. First published in Overland Issue 228 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.