Consumerist. com, a popular blog on sale since mid-November, has been acquired by Consumers Union, a nonprofit group that publishes Consumer Reports magazine. The financial details of the agreement finalized Wednesday have not yet been divulged.
The blog - formerly owned by Gawker Media, under the president-ship of its founder Nick Denton - is not the only site Gawker has sold this year. The others that met a similar fate were - Gridskipper, a travel site; and Wonkette, a political gossip blog. Another site Valleywag, which focused on technology in Silicon Valley, was closed by Gawker in November.
Consumerist is a blog offering useful consumer tips, which include tips on returning of products and baffling a telemarketer. In addition, the site also covers shopper complaints, especially those related to excessive retail markups.
In fact, Consumerist. com is well-known as a consumer advice site, and as a type of consumer watch dog in general. Starting January 1, the blog will operate independently of Consumer Union's other publications, and would be a part of its new nonprofit organization called Consumer Media LLC.
Despite the blog's acquisition by Consumers Union, the present editors of the Consumerist are expected to continue. There are absolutely no plans as yet to change the blog in any way whatsoever, either in terms of its coverage or by charging for the site.
According to Kevin McKean, Consumers Union's vice president and editorial director, "We don't want to acquire the Consumerist and then squelch it in some way."
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Media consolidation
Definitely good compared to the Consumerist going away. However, I’m personally concerned about this purchase.
I operate TrueDelta.com, which provides vehicle reliability information. Our information has two large advantages over that of Consumer Reports:
1. Report actual repair rates, not just vague dots, to make the differences between models much clearer.
2. Results promptly updated four times a year; so our information averages about ten months ahead of CR’s.
But, since we’re a competitor, you’ll never see CR mention our information, and I’m personally not allowed to mention my site in their forums–even when I have information that they cannot provide. Now that they’ve bought the Consumerist, I suspect the same will be true for it.
Quite a few times a journalist has told me that he can’t write about the unique information TrueDelta.com offers car buyers, because part of what the site offers competes with information offered by their employer.
In other words, from where I sit media consolidation isn’t a good thing. Each media outlet has its own interests, and these come before the interests of readers. The larger these outlets get, the broader their interests get, and the more delimited their reporting gets. Even in CR’s case. CR is for CR first, consumers second.
They’ve somehow convinced many in the media that they deserve to be the sole voice for consumer interests. They’d love to either buy or silence all competitors. There are good reasons this isn’t allowed when the aspiring monopolist is a for-profit firm, and the same reasons should apply to CR.