 "To pay or not to pay: Media cos split over buying $1,000 Twitter blue tick")
From tomorrow, Twitter will remove blue ticks from accounts that were previously verified but have not signed up for an $8 per month (Rs 900 in India) Twitter Blue subscription. Most of the users are without a clue about what will change once the legacy blue ticks disappear from the platform, and news agencies and outlets are struggling to answer another question.
Is it worth buying a $1,000 per month "Verified Organisation" package or letting their journalists buy an $8/month package on their own and then reimburse it as a business expense?
The "Verified Organisation" package offers a verified tick to the organisation's account and five affiliated accounts which will get Twitter Blue features. A small company logo will also appear next to the name and the checkmark. An additional account with the logo will cost $50/month to the company.
According to a report by BuzzFeed News, most of the major media organisations globally are not in favour of paying for monthly packs for their journalists.
This includes organisations like New York Times (NYT), The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and POLITICO.
NYT's director of external communications Charlie Stadtlander said that the outlet will not reimburse reporters for their blue ticks "except in rare instances where this status would be essential for reporting purposes".
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A spokesperson of The Washington Post said that they will not pay either as an institution or as an individual because "it's evident that verified check marks no longer represent authority and expertise".
Anita Kumar, POLITICO's senior editor of standards and ethics told BuzzFeed News, "In the future, a checkmark will no longer mean you are a verified journalist. Instead, it will simply mean you are paying for benefits such as longer tweets and fewer ads."
Apart from a blue checkmark, Twitter Blue will allow the accounts the ability to see the most shared articles by people they follow.
Some freelance and independent journalists, however, believe that the paid ticks may be worth it. The main benefit, which they believe, is the added distribution in the "For You" tab. Now, the users are offered a separate tab called "For You" which offers posts from accounts similar to one follows.