Media Has No Interest In Paying For Twitter Blue

It's been so weird the way Elon Musk and his friends have been jealous of underpaid, overworked journalists who happened to have blue check marks next to their name. There's some sort of deep-seated insecurity to think that just because Twitter decided some people should be verified to avoid problems with impersonation that it was some sort of status symbol (again, as full disclosure, at some point in 2020 or 2021, my account got verified, though this was through no request on my own: until then I had been happily unverified, and one day I showed up and there was a mark next to my name with me not having asked for it and without any interest in getting it).

I'm sure some people who got it did think it was a status symbol, but for most people the actual purpose was purely utilitarian: to avoid impersonation. The new system practically seems to encourage impersonation, seeing as Musk and friends were so totally mixed up into thinking that the main benefit of having the blue checkmark is as a status symbol.

Among those who got the checkmark though, no group was more mocked and attacked for having it than journalists. There were, of course, legitimate concerns about journalist impersonation, which is likely why Twitter had a whole program around verifying journalists. But so many of the assumptions Musk seems to make are based on the idea that journalists, whom he mostly seems to hate, would so want to cling to this status symbol that their employers would pony up $1,000 per month and an additional $50 for each journalist.

On Thursday evening Twitter put out one of its increasingly common, confusingly worded statements about the new program, talking up how companies could now pay to verify their own accounts they're affiliated with." So, now, rather than having Twitter protect your brand and your employees, you have to PAY TWITTER a ridiculously large monthly sum... to do all the work yourself?

And while they claim that lots of organizations are already on board (can't wait to see which companies are so gullible), the media - the ones that people were so jealous of - appear to have zero interest in contributing to and giving credibility to this madness. Oliver Darcy over at CNN has the roundup:

We aren't planning to pay the monthly fee for check mark status for our institutional Twitter accounts," a spokesperson for The New York Times said Thursday. We also will not reimburse reporters for Twitter Blue for personal accounts, except in rare instances where this status would be essential for reporting purposes."

The Los Angeles Times told staffers that Twitter is not as reliable as it once was" and that it will not be paying to verify our organization" on Twitter.

Some of you may be wondering whether or not the L.A. Times will pay for Twitter Blue subscriptions, and the answer right now is no, for several reasons: First of all, verification no longer establishes authority or credibility, instead it will only mean that someone has paid for a Twitter Blue subscription," said Sara Yasin, managing editor of the Los Angeles Times.

The Washington Post said it will not pay for Twitter Blue service as an institution or on behalf of our journalists" because it's evident that verified checkmarks no longer represent authority and expertise."

BuzzFeed also told staffers at BuzzFeed News and HuffPost that it will not pay for them to retain their checkmarks on Twitter.

As an organization, we will not cover fees for individuals to keep their blue checkmarks moving forward," Karolina Waclawiak, editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, and Danielle Belton, editor in chief of HuffPost, told staffers in a message to both newsrooms. There are several reasons for this, but one outweighs them all: a blue checkmark no longer means the handle is verified.'"

Vox Media also advised staffers that it will generally not pay for employees to keep or gain Twitter verification," according to a memo from group publisher Christopher Grant.

POLITICO additionally said it will not pay for Twitter Blue.

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

However, there's one interesting element in all of this: as lots of people discuss, Twitter has never been as widely used as some of the other, bigger, social media platforms. But it punched above its weight, in part because so many journalists relied on it. It was basically the water cooler chat for many, many journalists (myself included). And, because of that, it became super valuable in driving news stories.

But with the moves that Musk is making, beyond driving away advertisers, he's been driving away what made Twitter the center of attention: journalists' reliance on the site. And if he makes the site less useful for them, by making it less safe for them and driving away their colleagues, then it loses the one actual competitive advantage the site ever had.