Today David Ewalt, an editor at Forbes, live-tweeted a company meeting. In it Louis Dvorkin, the former CEO of True/Slant, which was recently acquired by Forbes, laid out a new bold strategy for Forbes. Here are the tweets (most to least recent):
Value for contributors isn’t explicitly defined yet. My own take: there will be both financial & non-financial rewards based on yr. audienceA couple people asking if this is HuffPo model — my answer would be no, it’s more entrepreneurial, about developing wide swaths of talent
If you are interested in writing about travel, real estate, wine, food, cars, sports, health –any forbes lifestyle topic– drop me a line!
Meeting adjourned! The big takeaway: If you have something smart or unique to say to the world, we’ll make it our job to help you say it
Reorganizational details tbd – this is more about philosophical direction
Forbes editors will increasingly become curators of talent. We will help you develop your own brand and talent
If anyone has questions I’ll try to ask it if you hurry.
Lewis calls it “incentive based entrepreneurial journalism.” This isn’t about trying to get people to give us content with no reward.
Forbes’ original reporting and investigation not going away. We’re adding a level 2 bottom of the pyramid: 1000s of outside contributors
The big idea: We are looking to significantly expand our stable of outside contributors. A merger of Forbes brand & the True/Slant model.
New Forbes edit boss Lewis Dvorkin having meeting right now with his editors. He says it’s on the record, so I’m tweeting from it live.
Seems to be a really courageous and I think effective new path for Forbes.
Interestingly Paul Carr later in the day let loose on TechCrunch about how foolish he thinks this strategy to be:
There are almost not enough words to describe how wrong-headed this move is: Forbes’ online editorial standards are already in the toilet and Dvorkin has just yanked on the flush. Not only will this new breed of hacks add thousands of pages of self-promotional, unedited (Forbes simply doesn’t have the resources to monitor thousands of contributors) drivel to Forbes.com but, by lowering the barrier to entry to anyone with a keyboard, the publication will also scare away those top tier contributors – captains of industry, statesmen and the like – who are prepared to pen a free article for Forbes just for the kudos that comes from being asked.