The Gawker Media Network has substantially cut its writers’ pay rates, according to Radar Online:

[For] the second and…third quarters of 2008, the company has reduced the rate of pay per pageview. Other Gawker Media sites, including Jezebel, also had their pageview rate cut.

At the beginning of the year, the pay rate per pageview on Gawker was $7.50, according to Portfolio’s Felix Salmon; it went to $6.50 for the next quarter and it is now $5. (Other sites vary, based on overall traffic and ad rate.)

The article’s writer, Choire Sicha goes on to provide an opinion on Gawker’s pay model

The ultimate flaw in the company’s logic regarding its pay scheme seems obvious. The website’s income should escalate when the site’s pageviews rise—unless, for instance, some high-end advertisers regard it as too tabloid a product, and ad rates have dropped. (Unlikely.)

So more ad inventory—actual pages served—should mean more income for the company—particularly since Gawker seems to be mostly increasing in pageviews not attached to any writer. At the same time, reducing the cost of the creation of that inventory also gets the company more of the income that is attached to a writer. Kicking down less money to the workers seems, at best, cheap.

Read the full article here.