Caffeina Magazine

Caffeina Magazine writes about gossip and light news. In just a few years, we have achieved a place among the top 10 digital publishers. We have 12 million unique users per month and 28 million sessions, and 50 million page views. We would never have achieved this success with plagiarized articles or deceptive titles. Our readers are not stupid, although there is no doubt that you think of them as such. Neither is Google, which has never detected Caffeina Magazine’s behavior as being contrary to editorial standards. We continually grow because the public rewards us and not because with a few tricks, we steal clicks.

To summarize:

  • The label was drawn up on the basis of quotes extrapolated from a telephone conversation which you have in no way revealed to be registered and for which you have not requested, nor received authorization to publish, in contravention of the journalism ethics that you claim to protect.
  • The label refers to improprieties that we have refuted: First, but not only, the accusation of plagiarism for having used the contents of the news agency to which we are bound by a contract that allows us, and sometimes binds us, to publish their content (but this is perhaps not the function of a news agency) without any modification.
  • We do not agree with the finding about our “misleading headlines” They are, at most, limited to “light” topics, compatible with news related to gossip, characterized by their traditional uncertainty, and published in a social environment. Nor on this point have we received criticism and opposition from our readers.
  • We have accepted some of your objections, for example regarding the identification of management, and we have answered your questions regarding how we behave in the event of a request for correction

But if our findings were not enough, we appeal to common sense.

Caffeina Magazine, with an average of 7 million unique readers per month, is one of the most widely read online news outlets. About five years ago we started our publications and since then we have always grown. Our Facebook page is one of the main Italian pages and perhaps second to none by the number of monthly interactions (20 million per month), and is constantly growing.

If the representation you make of our magazine is true, if we were a publisher dedicated to plagiarism, to the publication of exaggerated titles not corresponding to the contents of the article, if we were without responsible management and of a content review procedure, how would the above results be possible?

How would it be possible to have never received a single complaint in 5 years for plagiarism, defamation, or infringement of the copyrights of others?

How would it be possible to have a Facebook page without even a stain on the quality of the page itself: no content considered spam, no fake news, no copyright infringement?

At the same time, no similar attention is devoted to many online newspapers that in reality are often without editorial staff, but which do not disturb you, or which publish the same news for which you criticize us. Do they belong to the same competing publisher for which Newsguard journalists collaborate or have they collaborated?

And here another consideration comes into play: In fact, we note the professional impropriety deriving from the use, for the preparation of your judgments, of journalists who have worked or work for our competitors’ editors. And how can this role be maintained if you use non-impartial subjects? Who controls the controllers?

For these reasons, we believe that the action you carry out is not to control the journalistic quality of the contents of the publishers but to censor the publishers who do not correspond to your elitist and conformist vision of the information world.

We, therefore, warn you from publishing any article that concerns us and invite you to remove the fake one currently online.

Sincerely,

Gianluca Luciano

Caffeina Media Srl