Nate Thayer is an award winning journalist; he hardly needs "exposure." Couldn't The Atlantic have used some of its Scientology money to pay him? In no other industry would exposure count as a form of compensation, except maybe in porno.

You get assgrabs? Lucky. I get paid with Henricksen's unconsumed burrito drippings.

As far as the Thayer thing goes, I thought these responses were both interesting: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013…

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/arch…

I have a few problems with Madrigal's piece (most of which have to do with how much I hate a lot of the writers who make it into the Atlantic's print edition these days), but I think both writers are right to point out that the Atlantic's website and its magazine have very different business models. Still, if newspapers were in fact subsidizing the glossies all those years, you'd think the glossies could stand to do the same for digital, but at least Madrigal is aware (as so many "wither journalism?" writers are not) that newspaper journos have pretty much always been paid in assgrabs.

JOE, YOU GET UNCONSUMED DRIPPINGS!? THEY ONLY OFFERED ME HIS CONSUMED BURRITO DROPPINGS.

Great post, Jacob! Expect an extra assgrab this week.