Another Devastating Humiliation for Pro Pedo PJ Media

Early humiliations

During its first month of operation, Pajamas Media made several attempts to
make itself seem more important than it really was.

In November 2005, PJM issued a press release which claimed that the company
had a fully-staffed regional office in New York City's Rockefeller Plaza:

    Pajamas Media, a new blogging venture designed to bring together top
online writers, journalists and commentators under a single umbrella, today
announced it has expanded its operations to include regional offices in the
Los Angeles and New York. The organization also strengthened its
advertising and sales team with the hiring of Tom Troja, vice president of
marketing, and Vik Rubenfeld, research director.[4]

Subsequent prying by ever-curious bloggers revealed that the "office" was a
glorified call center and the listed phone number didn't work.[5]
Professionalism at its finest.

Around the same time, PJM unveiled its end-user license agreement (EULA).
Compared to the short disclaimers found on most blogs, the PJM EULA was
absurdly restrictive:

    Our Site and all its contents, which includes, but is not limited to,
text, graphics, photographs, logos, video and audio content, is protected
by copyright as a collective work or compilation under the copyright laws
of the United States and other countries. All individual components of Our
Site, including, without limitation, articles, content and other elements
comprising Our Site are also copyrighted works. Additionally all of the
weblogs linked to by us are likewise protected. You must abide by all
additional copyright notices or restrictions contained on this site and our
linked weblogs.

    You may not reproduce, distribute, copy, publish, enter into any
database, display, modify, create derivative works, transmit, or in any way
exploit any part of this site. The only exceptions to this are that you may
download material from Our Site for your own personal use, provided such
download is limited to making one machine readable copy and/or one print
copy that limited to occasional articles of personal interest only. No
other use of the content of Our Site is permitted. Please contact our Sales
Department if you wish to have rights other than those stated above.[6]

Taken literally, the EULA would completely override Fair Use, making it
next to impossible to reference, satirize or even promote the site.
Furthermore, it was nearly unenforceable. This user demonstrated the
foolishness of the EULA by repeatedly, deliberately and publicly violating
it before contacting PJM to inform them.[7] In December, PJM relented to
the mockery and changed their privacy page to something more reasonable.[8]
The network
How this is "conservative" is anyone's guess.

Pajamas Media launched with 70 bloggers, culled down from the 300 they
originally offered. The initial list was a mix of high-profile bloggers �
including Glenn Reynolds, Pamela Geller, Michelle Malkin, John Cole, and
Jeff Goldstein � and smaller blogs that PJM hoped to cultivate. Some of the
initial selections were downright perplexing,[9] and their prospects didn't
exactly improve with their later additions.[10]

Early PJM bloggers faced a variety of technical issues, most of them caused
by PJM's lack of organization or support. Bloggers had problems getting the
poorly-coded ads to work and had no real recourse save contacting higher-
tier bloggers for help. By the end of the first month, only 30% of the
bloggers were displaying a PJM logo, and just 12% had working ads.[11]

Tech issues and problems with management persisted for most of PJM's run.
By 2007, bloggers big[12] and small[13] were abandoning the network. That
same year, Charles Johnson sold his stake in PJM, citing differences of
opinion. He described the split in a 2009 interview:

    Look what it's become. It's pretty much World Net Daily lite. The
vision that we had when we started it was that we were gonna bring both
left wing and right wing bloggers on board. And I think that that's pretty
much been left by the wayside.[14]

Simon stabs the beast

In 2008, Simon launched PJTV, a video-hosting service featuring top-tier
bloggers from the network and whatever marginal political figures he could
wrangle.[15] This proved to be the beginning of the end, as Simon rapidly
lost interest in his bloggers. The coup de gr�ce came in January 2009, when
Simon announced his intention to phase out PJM. Bloggers in the network
received the following message:

    As you know, last September Pajamas Media began a new initiative in
Internet television called Pajamas TV. When we started with our RNC
coverage from Minneapolis, we noted that we would be in a Beta Phase
through the first quarter of 2009. In the last few months we have
strengthened the PJTV lineup with shows covering Media Bias, Education
Bias, Middle East Update, Sharia and Jihad, Powerline Report, Ask Dr.
Helen, Hugh News, Poliwood, Conservatism 2.0, Economy and Finance, National
Security, and others.

    As the end of the first quarter approaches and we near the production
phase of Pajamas TV, we will continue to build our emphasis in this area.
As a result we have decided to wind down the Pajamas Media Blogger and
advertising network effective March 31, 2009. The PJM portal and the
XPressBlogs will continue as is.

    Since our ad relationship continues for the time being, you should note
that in order to be paid for the 1st quarter of 2009, you must leave the
current Pajamas ads up until 12:01AM April 1. We will be sending you
information in mid-March on removing the ads. As of April 1, 2009, you will
be free to arrange syndication or re-sale deals.

    We thank you very much for participating during the formative years of
Pajamas Media and we look forward to working with you in other ways. One of
those is, of course, Pajamas TV. If you have any ideas in that regard,
please do not hesitate to contact us.

    Our best wishes in the new year and again our deepest gratitude for
your participation in Pajamas Media.

    Sincerely,

    Roger L. Simon

    CEO, Pajamas Media[16]

Needless to say, the poor saps who get this e-mail were not pleased by it
at all.[17] Simon's response was typically respectful:

    Actually that part of our business [ad sales] has been losing money
from the beginning, so the people getting their quarterly checks from PJM
were getting a form of stipend from us in the hopes that advertisers would
start to cotton to blogs and we could possibly make a profit. Didn�t
happen. No wonder those people are kicking and screaming now that they are
off the dole.[18]

PJTV