Recently, Business Insider — particularly editor Henry Blodget and superhuman deputy editor Joe Weisenthal — got ripped by a journalism professor for setting a bad example for journalists. ZDNet's Tom Foremski sympathizes with them, but notes that Business Insider is the symptom of a much larger problem.

Even with a journalism-lite approach to the news, where reporters post as many as 15 news stories a day based largely on work by rival reporters - there’s not much money to be made. It’s a poor way to make a living.

Mr Blodget is not lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills and stubbing them out on the backs of hard working journalists doing original reporting elsewhere.

In 2010, Business Insider had its first profitable year, it made $2,127 on revenues of $5 million. Even by rewriting other people’s news stories there is barely any money to be made - so how can quality journalism be supported?

First off, we recommend you read The New York Times’ piece on Weisenthal — that guy has more obsessive work habits than all of us, combined. (Then, when you’re done, read Blodget schooling a college professor.) Weisenthal’s habits show an issue with modern journalism in general. It’s all about getting as many pageviews as possible, no matter how stressful that proves to be in practice and how much that limits your quality control. “Henry Blodget and the Business Insider editorial team aren’t the ones responsible for the poor state of journalism today,” Foremski says, “they are merely the expression of what’s currently possible given the means available - which isn’t much, a whole lot of nothing much (about 250 news stories a day at Business Insider).” Foremski suggests the current model of advertising — obsessed with pageviews over quality — is the problem.