You’d be forgiven for thinking Southwest Journal is dead. And you would be right. In a sense.
The Southwest Journal, which covered parks, schools and small businesses in the southwest Minneapolis area from 1990 to 2020, is actually one of more than 360 newsrooms that disappeared during the pandemic. But if you go to that old website today, you’ll still find hundreds of new articles floating under a banner that says “SOUTHWEST Journal,” but the homepage’s image of a skyscraper skyline is mistaken for Linden Hills. It rarely happens. Headlines about Sebastian Jaws and airport noise mitigation are hidden deep in the archives, while fresher headlines like 13 of New York City’s tallest buildings, 15 of the world’s most dangerous fish, and Tucker Carlson’s net worth It has been replaced.
“A lot of people in Minnesota ask what happened to that website, but nothing special happened. We just bought the domain and built a new website from scratch.” said current owner Nebojša Vujinovic Vujo, adding that Tucker’s post received 10,000 page views in one day. “We don’t make as much stuff about Minnesota anymore. Maybe 1 percent is about Minnesota.”
The affable and earnest Vujo spoke with us recently from his apartment in Belgrade, Serbia. I learned about him and his 2,000 content mill website from his recent Wired article with the headline “Confessions of the Kingpin of AI Clickbait.” The excellent profile describes once-popular and defunct websites, including feminist blog The Hairpin, Pope Benedict XVI’s Pope2you.net, and former President Trump’s TrumpPlaza.com. Vujo acquires these websites and posts clickbait articles designed to attract traffic from search engines. Earn money with programmatic advertising. Sponcon and paid backlinks bring in additional revenue. (According to Vujo, one porn site he offered to buy Pope2you.net outright said, “That’s bad. I would never do that.”)
The site Wired cited looked a lot like the modern-day zombie company Southwest Journal, and when I scanned it for contact information, sure enough, Vujo’s company, Shantel, popped up.
The Bosnian-born cybersquatter employs a team of around 50 employees to “humanize” and fact-check content from its Serbian offices, but now only accounts for around 90% of what is actually posted. is executed by an AI program. Although he has no illusions about the quality of those articles (SWJ’s biggest hit was his article on the 15 richest porn stars), he insists his heart is in the right place. do.
“My main purpose on the Internet is never just to make money, right?” says the father of a millennial who fled the Yugoslav wars when he was young. “I love creating things. Imagine 2 to 3 million people reading my articles every day.”
Vugeot said the Southwest Journal is one of his biggest moneymakers and is in his top 50 collections. Last August, just a few months after it was acquired for about $42,000, the website reportedly had 2.5 million page views. Vugeot said the month was “hugely” profitable, but did not elaborate. Zach Farber, Southwest Journal’s last editor, said the old site never reached that number. Vujo said Google has since improved its algorithm and Southwest Journal now receives about 100,000 page views per month. “You’re always fighting Google, but Google is still on my priority list,” he says of SWJ.
Mr. Farber is not thrilled about what happened to the website, and even less excited about the article written by a former colleague in what is now a whitewash byline. (“It’s legal and normal,” Vugeot says.) He said SWJ co-publishers Janice Hall and Terry Gahan didn’t protect the domain or turn it over to staff. I deplore this fact.
“I think it’s hard to muster any personal animosity toward this opportunistic fraudster,” Farber said. “The Southwest Journal archives have been invaluable to Minneapolis residents, researchers, officials, and journalists seeking to understand the city’s recent history. I’m frustrated that there are no guardrails in place.”
Vugeot uses several metaphors to describe his work, which he says are completely legal. Reminiscing about your past life as a DJ, create meaningful, niche pieces (think heartfelt neighborhood news stories) or commercial pieces with broad appeal (think luxury car articles). We talk about how musicians struggle to make music. “You can’t stop the technological process,” he says of his AI writing, picking up another metaphor. Cars emit planet-destroying greenhouse gases, but no one goes back to horse-drawn carriages. “I’m not a fan of my car, but I drive it.”
“There are a billion websites out there,” he says. “So if you ask me, did I do anything wrong regarding SouthwestJournal.com? No, I didn’t do anything. It’s just that the name is associated with it…It’s something you miss in the past. ”
What if Twin Cities readers want a taste of that nostalgia? Vujo claims he’s open to an offer to lease the SouthwestJournal.com vertical, which specializes in news about Southwest Minneapolis.
“This is a call to our readers. We’re open for business. Let’s build. Let’s make America great again!” he said with a hearty laugh.
