There are many considerations as to why a publication might want to maintain verified status for its journalists. A news executive at an entertainment news outlet, who was not authorized to talk about its policy, told BuzzFeed News that the outlet would likely end up paying for the audit. While the publication is at less risk of misinformation that could lead to World War III, it has an ongoing problem with scammers trying to scam music artists out of money by pretending to write for the publication and asking them to pay for (fake) coverage.
Jeffrey Ingersoll, editor-in-chief of the Daily Caller, told BuzzFeed News that his organization will likely opt for the enterprise version, although he personally has no intention of leaving his mark. “I was planning on giving up mine because I’m not interested in becoming famous among journalists on Twitter,” he said. “Since verification became a paid feature, it has lost some of its usefulness for me—especially searching for tweets from only verified people to get a sense of how the media is perceiving a story.”
The Daily Caller has not yet decided which people in the newsroom will remain verified as part of the five-account package, and the publication plans to review analytics in a few months to see if the pay is worth it.
Insider also has no plans to honor its journalists' checks. “The value of the blue checkmark was that it said the person was who they said they were,” editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson told BuzzFeed News. “Now the blue checkmark simply says they are a Twitter Blue subscriber. This doesn't help Twitter users or our readers.”
Likewise, Politico will not honor employees' checks. “In the future, a tick will no longer mean that you are a verified journalist. Instead, it will simply mean you pay for benefits like longer tweets and fewer ads,” wrote Anita Kumar, senior standards and ethics editor at Politico, in an editorial message published by BuzzFeed News. “Politico won't pay you to follow Twitter Blue. You can, of course, register at your own expense.”
However, for freelancers and independent journalists, it may be worth it. “I'm definitely paying for Twitter Blue. In fact, I signed up this week,” said Alex Kantrowitz, a former BuzzFeed News contributor who writes the Substack newsletter. Big Tech. “I don't care about the blue check mark, which might be a deal-breaker at this point. But getting extra distribution in the For You tab is worth $8 a month to me, considering distribution is the lifeblood of smaller media brands like Big Technology.”
In addition to the blue checkmark, Twitter Blue includes features such as the ability to see the most shared articles by people you follow on Twitter, which many journalists find useful. Twitter is also apparently working on allowing Blue subscribers to hide their check mark, which could make paying the modest fee more attractive to those who just want those features but find the check to be unattractive.
BuzzFeed Inc. (which includes the various accounts of BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed News, Tasty, HuffPost and Complex) has no plans to pay or allow employees to spend blue checks. “As a company, we don't think it's reasonable to use resources to pay for people to keep a blue check that's no different from someone else—an amateur medical expert, Elon Stan, or anyone else—who is simply willing to pay for a blue check,” said BuzzFeed News editor-in-chief Caroline Waclawiak.
Ellie Hall and Tom Warren contributed to this story.
