Huffington Post volunteer contributors demand to get paid

As I understand the Huffington Post business model, some authors are paid but a huge majority of them get absolutely nothing more than exposure. Since Arianna Huffington sold the site for more than $300 million to AOL a few weeks ago, some of the unpaid contributors want a cut.

The writers understood the deal when they started writing and now some of them – it’s not really clear how many – don’t like the rules. From the Daily Caller today, with my emphasis in bold.

Bill Lasarow, the publisher and co-editor of Visual Art Source, told The Daily Caller in a phone interview that his organization is standing firm with its demands that the site reform its pay and content structures.

Participation in the strike has expanded beyond the membership of Visual Art Source, Lasarow told TheDC. He said that many other Huffington Post bloggers and contributors have joined.

Strike participants are demanding that the Huffington Post implement a system to pay contributors for their content, and for the site to differentiate between paid promotional content and the work of contributors. …

Mario Ruiz, the Huffington Post’s senior vice president for Media Relations, wrote in an e-mail to TheDC, “HuffPost has 148 editors, writers, and reporters on our edit team. While we pay our editors, writers, and reporters, we don’t pay for the opinion pieces submitted by our thousands of bloggers. With the exception of .0001 percent, contributors to our group blog are happy to access the platform and the huge audience it brings.”

So I guess the progressive/liberal/statist unpaid volunteer contributors at HP are trying to unionize and Huffington is telling them to bug off? She played the game – all perfectly legal – and it paid off for her big-time. If the unpaid writers couldn’t figure out others were making profits partially from their efforts … I don’t feel too bad for them.

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Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

12 Comments

  1. Dimsdale on March 9, 2011 at 5:22 am

    I hope they are demanding health care benefits as well!  LOL!

     

    This is so typical of liberals, who routinely scream about how selfish and money grubbing conservatives are, yet when it comes to sharing their personal wealth, either through taxes, charity or, in this case, simply fair pay for fair work, they balk.

     

    C'mon, Arianna, it is only fair that your workers share in your good fortune, inasmuch as they are the ones that created it for you (well, that and your ex husband).



  2. GdavidH on March 9, 2011 at 5:42 am

    I've read some really stupid cut and paste trash over at HuffPo. Seems to me it would be like paying your grade school age children for their opinions and tantrums.



  3. PatRiot on March 9, 2011 at 7:16 am

    Simply substitute the term "politician' for Huffington Post and "taxpayer" for volunteer contributor.

    And now we see how we have ALL been played. 

    Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

    Who is at the heart of this: Big money or government?

    Who ever THEY are, if we do not give them our hard earned money or volunteer contributions, THEY cannot play.

    I think they call that passive agressive.



  4. Dimsdale on March 9, 2011 at 1:33 pm

    My, a bit of vitriol bubbled up!  I hope that was sarcasm…



  5. Steve M on March 9, 2011 at 2:45 pm

    Why would I retract a statement about a website that locked up two browsers on my PC? Are you saying it did not happen? It did. Even on my MacBook, your website requires QuickTime for some reason.

    Visit at your own risk.



  6. TomL on March 9, 2011 at 2:54 pm

    Wow that was unpleasant, I think I'll just pass over VR's posts from now on



  7. crystal4 on March 9, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    (Wow-you righties are Nasty!)

    Anyway-those now wanting a piece of the action have a nerve.

    They are mostly politicians whose articles were on huff po conveniently before election time or others who (co-incidentally) had a book coming out.



  8. Plainvillian on March 9, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    Looks like the hypocrite lefties who want some of that un-redistributed wealth are at odds with the hypocrite lefties who want to keep their wealth from being redistributed, doesn't it?  How ironic for the Huffington Compost.



  9. Steve M on March 9, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    OK, I've deleted two of your posts I considered out-of-bounds and I apologize if I pissed you off. That said, I've had two other people visit the site and they also got the pop-up requiring the QuickTime plug in, which is unusual for a site and I don't want to install it. (I can not cancel out, but the other two could.)

    Click here to view a screen shot of my experience. Note the YouTube 204 No Content errors. Note the total load time for me (more than 57 seconds). I certainly could have an issue on my machine, but to call me a liar is unacceptable.



    • Geno on March 12, 2011 at 6:54 pm

      I checked out the site and while my machine did not lock up, I did get the Quicktime installation box. I was able to cancel it and then was bombarded by music.  Personally, I can't stand any website that plays media automatically.  I'll choose when I want to hear audio or view video.



  10. PatRiot on March 9, 2011 at 5:02 pm

    @crystal4 – you hit it on the head:   THEY are mostly self serving and all about themselves.  And if  THEY can convince others to spend their own time, money and efforts to promote THEIR agendas, all the better.  And then throw the others under the bus when the time is right.

    It seems more prevelant on the left.  But generally, most power hungry, egocentric folks are happy to further themselves by making the statement  – "T.E.A.M. -Together Every One Achives More and there is no "I" in team".  All the while thinking – without "ME" you are just a "TA".



  11. edwardinct on March 10, 2011 at 6:09 am

    maybe they need some good union representation, I hear there are a few union reps looking for jobs in Wisconsin. LOL



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