Strike Called Against the Huffington Post by Contributors

Source: Associated Content

Mark Whittington

In the wake of the sale of the Huffington Post to AOL for $315 million, liberal media maven Arianna Huffington is facing a revolt from some of her contributors who hitherto have provided news and commentary for free.

The grievance seems to be that Huffington Post contributors, regarding the huge pay day Huffington has garnered, would now like to have a piece of the action. To get what they believe is coming to them, some
contributors have called for a strike.

"Bill Lasarow, Publisher and Co-Editor of Visual Art Source, announced that his organization is 'now going on strike. For now, at least, no more content from us will appear on the Huffington Post.'

"Visual Art Source members have contributed content to the Huffington Post for free since 2010. Lasarow wrote that 'it is unethical to expect trained and qualified professionals to contribute quality content for nothing.'"


Read more: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7826552/strike_called_against_the_huffington.html

... they'll make a point to prove that "nothing has changed" in order to retain HuffPo's loyal followers. Then, once the hooha has died down, they'll make their often radical, anti-democratic changes.

want to work for AOL for free?

BTW, Ariana is a "used to be neo-con", now a "born-again Liberal, isn't she? I may be wrong. If that is the case, maybe she retained many of her greedy rethug morals. Money makes the world go 'round and a person, aging, with an "untapped gold-mine" (Huff-Po) was (it seems) convinced to cash in. Fuck the Movement, I'll just take mine(?) and exit......

Than before.

At least that is what she and Bill Maher were talking about when she appeared on his show a few weeks back.

to be honked at such a huge payday for the top dog, but I also suspect that they intended to use, or did use, their association with HP to enhance their own visibility and further their own moneymaking careers, so it's not as if they received no benefit at all for what they did.

They use their TV shows to further their own moneymaking careers. Yet no one expects them to work for free.

Ariana has become one of the "pigs at the trough" with this deal.

to work for nothing. They were free to peddle their skills and services anywhere they wanted, for as much benefit as they could get. They choose to be unpaid contributors to HP, for reasons that apparently seemed good to them at the time. They certainly could not have had any illusions that someone wasn't making money off what they were doing. But apparently now, someone is making too much money to suit them. In that light, there's certainly nothing wrong with them wanting a piece of the pie, but they can't claim to have been mistreated.

Some people are "forced" in a way to work for free.

If no one pays until you have "experience" and the only way you can get experience is to work for free, then people will work for free.

If people have nothing else, they will work for free based on the promise of future work (see: craigslist employment ads).

When there is a shortage of jobs and people will do anything to stay viable, they will work for free.

When companies won't hire you if there is a gap in your employment, you'll work for free to look like you're employable. It's called internships.

Free workforce - every corporatists dream!

It was one thing to work free to help her out while she built the business, but now that it's sold for a high sum she ought to share the wealth a bit with those who got here where she is today.

I never bought that "ex"-republican horseshit. She'll do exactly what any other conservative puke would do. :shrug:

It should be like any other start-up where the employees are rewarded when the buy out and pay-out comes, whether it be eBay or Huffington. Without writers she would have had only a shell. Individuals who write have little recourse for rights or remuneration for their intellectual property while the corporations profit and then get big payouts and damages.

How can Huffington walk away with all the profits without rewarding those official writers who played a part in her business?

You are absolutely correct. Nowadays young people are thrilled to have an unpaid internship in some company or organization. And the companies are thrilled to have people working for nothing. While slavery was abolished in the United States, high unemployment rates turn desperate people into voluntary slaves.

Slaves can be stolen from their homes, bought and sold, are never free to leave, and can never expect to be paid a cent for a lifetime of labor, no matter how well developed and in demand their skills become. Interns are free to leave at a moment's notice and go to any employer they want, any time they want, once their skills have developed to the point where someone is willing to pay for them. They are also free to sit at home and play video games and text all day for the same non-salary if they think an internship is too much work. How does any of that apply to what slaves went through?

And they were not required to work for Adriana Huffington under her terms if they didn't wish to. As I said, they were free to sell their services anywhere they wanted, for whatever salary they could get. If their skills were not valuable enough to be worth money to anyone else, that wasn't Adriana'a fault. Let's not forget, these were online columnists (or "bloggers", to use their preferred and more elevated title). Can you say "dime a dozen"? They probably expected that what they were doing would be of sufficient future financial and professional benefit to make it worth working for free for a while, but again, that was THEIR choice, freely made. Perhaps they also thought that what Huffington was doing was a worthy cause that they wanted to support, and in that light at least, they are not unjustified in wanting a piece of the pie. If they simply don;t want to be under the umbrella of AOL now, that's understandable too, but again, they are free to peddle their wares anywhere else that they can get someone to pay.

for free.

Agreeing to write for Huffington for free years ago doesn't mean they'll work for free forever, or for AOL at all.

however, things have changed.

She's sold out to Time Warner/AOL. They don't have to. Without them, Huffington Post is the Drudge Report.

They didn't agree to work for free forever, or at all for AOL.

to work anywhere they choose for whatever salary they can convince someone to pay them.

which is exactly what this strike means.

or that they simply don't want to work for AOL under any circumstances? If the former, they are certainly free to make their demands known, and to find work elsewhere if they aren't met. But as I pointed out elsewhere, political bloggers are a dime a dozen these days, and if AOL thinks they can get the job done as well for cheaper, they're certainly free to try. If the latter, a "strike" seems to have no point, since no demands or negotiation will change the fundamental nature of what AOL is.

this site has become a major blog due to the collective efforts of its writers. Why shouldn't the writers be paid for their efforts? Do you think no writers should be paid?

but if I did, please feel free to point it out to me.

As I HAVE said, repeatedly on this thread, the writers should be free to seek as much pay as they can get, wherever they can find it. How much that is depends to some extent on how many other people can do what they do, and how well. If they choose to work for less actual money, in exchange for other, less tangible benefits, that's certainly their right as well.

and was building it up to be the answer to the drudge report.

She is no longer the owner of Huffington Post. AOL is.

She has changed the parameters of her working relationship with them.

as they have always been.

that benefits them the most economically, except for millions upon millions of brainwashed working or middle class Americans who vote Republican.

I think the term is greedy.

She wrote the book, maybe she should read it.

and bring on the right wingers like Palin who would want at least $25,000 for one short written piece not even written by her.

she can't even handle that.

just because they once were willing to work with a fledgling blog for free?

I don't think Alec Baldwin really needs the Huffington Post to enhance his career.

and if he doesn't want to work under AOL's control, he's free to stop posting there. But not everyone who has used Huff Post as a platform is as well off as he is, and they no doubt have used it to increase their visibility.

Well, people die from exposure.

I would have no problem with her pocketing all of the cash if she had told all of her contributors up front, "I'm going to use your work for free and then some day accept a corporate buy out that I will keep."

She has the moral (if not legal) duty to give back to those who helped make that $300+ million dollar profit.

Since Keith has been gone , Huffpo is now my main news source. Seems greed is getting in the way of the bottom line :(

to work for AOL for free?

Not required by law, but would have been a classy move.

The strike is a no-win.

It's becoming an excessively silly site and it surprises me whenever a good writer turns up there. It's more People Magazine than informative at this point.

Since the site has been overrun with rw executives, center/right establishment types like Howard Fineman, and the final insult sold to a huge corporation. Not only is Arianna showing her true colors, IMO she is a snake not to be trusted. Kudos to the humble writers for seeing reality finally.

without being screened on HP- and I'd do it for free.
I don't even visit anymore since you have to have Ariana o.k. everything you say.

Shame on the hypocrite.

Can't remember the last time I saw a Def Poetry Jam on television. Always wondered why the concept hadn't taken off.

I tried Der Google.

I find that confusing, since I though Def Poetry Jam was on Broadway for quite a while. Not to mention HBO. Wouldn't the performers need to be under one or more of the show biz unions?

This is not a major brouhaha. It's a hummingbird fart in a hurricane.

I visited Huffpo early on, maybe twice. I could not get past the lackluster writing, or Ariana's grating voice, which intruded like some auditory phantasm when I read any of the content therein.

Moreover, her political stance struck me as opportunistic. Perhaps I was spot on...

...is to revolt and not publish liberal viewpoints.

Yeah, that'll show AOL. I mean, they can't replace those bloggers with more friendly ones. :sarcasm:

Her sad load times were always caused by the greed from the amount of advertising she has/had on her site, but the payday was the greenback that broke the camel's back.

Drudge, Huffington, the only intent is money and self-aggrandizement, nothing more.

was the moment I stopped reading it. Fuck aol and unless miss huffington has some yet unknown plan up her sleeve to redeem herself, the same sentiment goes for her.

And HP has every right to do without the content they would have generated.

I have every expectation that the payment model at HP will evolve over time. But there are a lot of people out there who will work for free to get their stuff where it can be seen, and on a high-profile site at that. And let's not go all ahistorical here: writers, actors, musicians, and just about everybody in the arts is used to working for free until/unless they get a break. That's why the concept of the "day job" has survived so long.

Assigning a value to creative works -- especially by newcomers -- has always been tricky, and it's generally been the creator who takes the risk. Decry it all you want, but you got another idea? NEA can't support everyone (and the 'Licans are going to defund NEA anyway).

to fill in gaps between gigs or roles... not free work! Jobs that allow some flexibility.

Of course I know a lot more about actors and musicians than writers. But while they all might even work free for a short time for a cause or to get recognition being free forever working for a for profit corporation? None that I know

For carfare (at best), with the expectation that you'll polish your craft, establish relationships with colleagues who may later produce other shows, and be seen by reps from paying companies or productions.

It gets real tiresome when you want to eat regularly and live indoors, but it is pretty traditional.

These days the Internet provides a similar path to writers. At some point, you hope to convert exposure into commercial gain.

all over your faces.you've been used.

If you expect to be paid for work, but give it away for free, do not expect to be paid later.

I do both, but have never thought that my contributed work would stand on its own as a source of revenue... sure, it can lead to for-profit work, but if you always give it away, well, an expectation is set.

Don't give HP any more traffic.

the money comes from the ads, if ppl stop going to HP, it goes belly up.

Yes, HP can get new writers and it may be that in time they move right but liberals own the internet so the money generated by a right wing site will not be as much.

Huffington has always seemed like an opportunist to me. She was a conservative TV commentator in the 90s when TV was king, then when it became evident the web was left leaning, she moved left and moved here. I don't begrudge her but stopped going to HP when it turned into Entertainment Weekly on the web. For me it became a vapid waste of time. And I'm pissed she publishes that immoral David Kirby who owes the world an apology for all his "autism is caused by vaccines" shit which he wrote to make money. Hate him.

If you are not truly on the left stop pretending and for God's sake don't do it for a fat payecheck and sell out. Non for profits like Keith Olbermann is doing with his blog is the way of the future for liberal media.

and think that you have nailed it, Hamlette. She is, was, and will always be an opportunist. I used to read HuffPo, but like you, I tuned out long ago.

how much value a writer (or content provider for that matter) places on their content if they give it away for free.

Then when all the right wing propaganda for the corporate aristocracy is put on the HuffPo, the corporate news media will continue to cite it as a liberal forum.

what?!?! I'm afraid that I don't have to ask this, but are people really this stupid?

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it is all about money. Ironic isn't it?

From the article: "Go ahead, go on strike," she said. She laughed at "the idea of going on strike when no one really notices."

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7826552/strike_called_against_the_huffington.html?cat=2

Arianna is not a liberal or a conservative, she is about Arianna and always has been.

Cant believe she said that. I would of that she would just ignore it.

I'm not. She's a very self centered person. It's about Arianna.

What was that Bush said? "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...well...um...we won't get fooled again."

Let's all use the colbuffingtonre-post to show solidarity http://www.colbertnation.com/ColbuffingtonRe-post">ColbuffingtonRe-post

When will the revolt begin. I stopped going to huffpo a few years ago. I attended one of her overpriced appearances - my ticket was discounted for members. I was sorry I attended the event. Her rhetoric had changed.



Is she sounding more and more like Zsa Zsa Gabor or is it just me?

Uh oh ... Arianna exploiting writers ... hypocrite ... wealthy white = exploit ...

Good for the writers! I hope they win out. :)

...who wrote "Pigs At the Trough" about political sell outs? Irony, much?

Arainna is a self-serving conservative who has done nothing but attack Obama since he took office. Believe
it, she'll shift to the right as soon as she sees a dollar bill tilting.

picked up by paid sites.

They started to not use some of my posts. I knew I was a little overboard with the conservanazi bu$hit, so I toned it down quiet a bit. They refused to answer my emails or why I wasn't being posted. So, I re-registered and started writing again under a new ID. Then, I realized that they weren't paying people to post and now, it's a big payday for Arriana.

I haven't been to the site in a while, but to have others do it for free so you can sell is crap.

Arriana is a POS.

Share the wealth or go under.

That was always the hardest part of any writing job I did--getting paid. Huffpo should effing pay its contributors.

where both sides are coming from, I have to be honest. I don't think this people deserve a piece of the money that Arianna Huffington made. If they simply want money now, while under the AOL umbrella, they have that right. Otherwise, I don't really see the "trickery" involved in this situation.

She decided to start a website. She made it hugely popular. She then sold it. Most people who start up a business would feel that that's at least something that might make financial sense in the long run. If she had claimed that she would never do this, then did, I could understand. To the best of my knowledge, this never happened. You might not like it. But, that's not really for her to worry about.

It sounds crass, but this is a business. She made a great business deal. She might not like the new direction, I'm sure a lot of DUers don't. She might love the new direction. At the end of the day, it's simply something that's bound to happen. AOL is bound to change the content, but it's up to you to decide what you will and will not partake in.

As for the wages these bloggers/columnists feel they are entitled to, I can see their points. However, no one forced them to work for free. Now that they work for AOL, they can set something up that's different, financially. AOL can also choose to work with people that will write for free. This isn't wrong. These are choices. AOL has the right to let them go, these writers have the right to request financial gains at this point. They could have done the same with Arianna herself. They didn't.

I've never been that big of a fan of Arianna, but this doesn't make me feel differently about her in either direction. This was business. She's essentially the same person she's always been. Some people on this board would have made the same decision. Some wouldn't have. Choices.

Some feel that she should now break them off a piece of this 300 million dollar proverbial pie. However, I doubt that if the contributors had gained a better opportunity due to some of the work they did at the Post, that they would have paid Arianna any amount of money. That would have been business, as well. They gained exposure. She gained a huge deal. Business.

I wish I could join but I never contributed to them.

"From the producers of 'Breakout Kings...' ". x( (O'jays) Money, money, money, munn-aayy...(/O'jays)