There are various considerations as to why news organizations want to maintain their journalist verified status. A newsroom leader at the entertainment news outlet, which isn’t authorized to speak about its policy, told BuzzFeed News the publication would eventually pay a verification fee. The outlet has a low risk of misinformation of the kind that could start World War III, but scammers trying to trick music artists out of money by pretending to write for publications. I’m still having problems with (false) coverage.
Daily Caller editor-in-chief Geoffrey Ingersoll told BuzzFeed News that his organization will likely run an enterprise version. “I was going to expire myself because I have no interest in being famous as a nerd among journalists on Twitter,” he said. “Since verification has become paid, it’s lost its usefulness to me. Especially finding tweets from verified-only people to help me figure out where the media is picking up stories. .”
The Daily Caller has not decided which persons in the newsroom will remain verified as part of the package of five accounts. The outlet plans to review its analysis in the coming months to see if it’s worth the money.
Insider also has no plans to pay journalists’ checks. Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Carlson told BuzzFeed News, “The value of a blue checkmark is that it indicates that the person is who they say they are.” “A blue checkmark now shows that they are his Twitter Blue subscribers. That doesn’t help Twitter users or readers.”
Similarly, Politico does not pay staff checks. “In the future, the checkmark will no longer prove you are a journalist. Instead, it will only mean that you are paying for benefits such as longer tweets and less advertising.” Anita Kumar, senior editor of standards and ethics at Politico, wrote in a message to the newsroom shared with BuzzFeed News. “Politico will not pay subscription fees for Twitter Blue.
For freelancers and freelance journalists, it might be worth it. “I’m definitely paying for Twitter Blue. In fact, I signed up this week,” said Alex Kantrowitz, a former BuzzFeed News staffer who writes the Substack newsletter. big technology“I don’t mind the blue check mark, which can be a problem at the moment. But given that distribution is the lifeblood of a smaller media brand like Big Technology[For You]Adding extra deliveries to the tab is worth $8/month. ”
Beyond just getting a blue checkmark, Twitter Blue includes features like the ability to see the most shared articles by people you follow on Twitter, which many journalists find useful. increase. Twitter also appears to be working on ways to allow Blue subscribers to hide the checkmark.
BuzzFeed Inc. (including various accounts for BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed News, Tasty, HuffPost, and Complex) does not plan to require employees to pay or incur costs for blue checks. “As a company, we don’t think it’s a wise use of resources for individuals to pay to keep blue checkmarks,” said BuzzFeed News Editor-in-Chief Karolina Wakrawiak. rice field.
Ellie Hall and Tom Warren contributed reporting for this article.
