Today’s post is the first in a new series debuting on Bateman Banter we’re calling: “The New J-School”, a semi-regular examination of the evolving nature of journalism in today’s digital age. The month of January brought to light some interesting developments we feel signal the start of a much larger trend — one that could swallow the conventional ad-supported media whole — the rise of corporate-sponsored journalism.

In the last week, two former BusinessWeek editors disclosed new deals to write for the corporate blogs of companies they used to cover. Steve Wildstrom, until recently the Personal Technology editor for BusinessWeek, forged a relationship with graphics chip giant NVIDIA to write for the company’s popular nTersect blog. This kicked off with a well-publicized trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where Steve reported live from the show floor. Wildstrom’s former BusinessWeek colleague Steven Baker also announced ongoing deal to write for SmartData Collective, a community of blogs sponsored by data warehousing leader Teradata.

Either by choice or necessity, more and more journalists are becoming independent agents forced to fend for themselves in the open market. Wildstrom and Baker are at the forefront of this new breed of journalist cutting their own deals, and, in the process, figuring out how to do the reporting, get paid and deal responsibly with ethical issues. As these free agents seek out new opportunities to make money, they’re finding very little coming from traditional advertising-based media outlets. There are, however, an increasing number of corporations producing their own content and becoming media companies in their own right, and many of them need help.

For even the largest companies, maintaining a corporate blog with the kind of content needed to become the “must-read” site in a given sector is an uphill battle. At best, there may be 2-3 budding thought leaders in every organization, but the responsibility of writing thought-provoking, compelling content week in and week out is burdensome when it’s an adjunct to a full-time job. The burden is then passed onto the PR team to clean up poorly written or conceived copy until it’s suitable for publishing; nudge others to complete their drafts; and source more and more “content creators” within the company to share the burden.

Cutting deals with former journalists brings a new level of professionalism, respect and credibility to a corporate blog while alleviating the burden that has fallen on the marketing and PR professionals who produce it. Moreover, these deals allow the newly freelance journalists to remain a part of technology sectors they’ve followed for years. Without a masthead to call home, fewer PR people are calling them with breaking news or to broker meetings with their CEOs. These journalists are worried, and rightfully so, that their value in the marketplace will diminish as their relationships with story sources and C-level executives erode over time.

If approached the right way, the rise of corporate-sponsored journalism sounds like a win/win for the reporters and corporations, but it also raises several questions. How will this impact the quality of the reporting long term? How will this benefit readers, if at all? In the tech sector, the number of journalists considered truly credible is quite small. With the publishing industry imploding, who’s grooming the market influencers of tomorrow?  How long before demand soon outstrips the supply? Could companies that fail to broker deals with newly independent journalists ahead of their competitors soon discover there aren’t any good ones left? Worse still, could a Cisco or Oracle or EMC swoop in and buy all the quality ones up?

Next time on “The New J-School”, we’ll attempt to address these “what if” scenarios and share our thoughts on effective ways to integrate corporate-sponsored journalism into a marketing strategy.