The Huffington Post sold for $315 million (labor bloggers that helped build it don't get a dime)

[Omaha Steve]

The Huffington Post which expects to make $60 million in ad revenue this year on top of the 300 million from AOL has more than enough money to pay its blog writers a marginal fee - say $20 bucks a post. Its simply outrageous that they dont and drive down the wages of people like myself trying to make a living as a journalist

Also, the Huffington Post unlike its major online competitors the New York Times (Steven Greenhouse), the Wall Street Journal (Kris Maher & Melanie Trottman), Bloomberg (Holly Rosenkrantz) does not have a full time journalist assigned to cover the labor movement. Instead, the 16 million dues paying members of the labor movement look to the labor coverage provided by unpaid bloggers like myself who provided pver a 100 articles on labor issues to HuffPost. This labor coverage drives a high number of nearly 16 million union members to the site who otherwise might not go to a site that falls to cover workplace struggles (Note Sam Stein does provide excellent coverage of some macro level labor political issues, but not much of workplace struggles such as strikes, lockouts, and organizing drives)

So to claim that the Huffington Post is doing a favor by letting little known blogs write there is bullshit. The Huffington Post gets far more out of the arrangement in terms of ad revenue and coverage of issues where they don't have reporters assigned like the labor movement.

By not showing leadership on the issue of hiring labor reporters, the Huffington Post is setting a standard that is OKAY for publications NOT to hire labor reporters. They relegate labor reporting as unimportant with such a decision; thus relying on unpaid and underpaid reporters to provide such coverage that is crucial to all working Americans

Arianna Huffington has talked often about a "Third World America" for American workers, but has created third world working conditions for the very journalist who cover such worker's conditions.

[Travis_0004]

1. If you are not happy with the agreement, then why write for them?

Why not try to write for somebody else that will pay you, or you are happier with.

Its easy to complain, but at the end of the day, if you are still writing articles, then that would seem to imply that the Huffington post is at least the best option you have.

[Wilms]

2. I'd agree with you 100%, 'cept for one thing.

I'm not into right-wing talking points.

[pscot]

3. I'll go get the goat.

[Omaha Steve]

4. I didn't write this post

It is on a union members only blog unsigned.

OS

[Atypical Liberal]

5. Ding!

By not showing leadership on the issue of hiring labor reporters, the Huffington Post is setting a standard that is OKAY for publications NOT to hire labor reporters.

You know the old expression: "Why buy the cow when the milk is cheap?"

This isn't just a HufPo phenomenon. Journalism everywhere is taking a labor hit, because there are millions of people out there generating content for free. Anyone with a couple of thousand dollars or less can set themselves up to make an in-home sound stage for doing their own talking head show. Anyone with a keyboard can "blog". People can and will generate content for free, hell some people do it just for fun.

If you don't want to write for HufPo, then don't! You can set up your own web site for less than $100 a year. Or hell, set up a blog here!

[ElsewheresDaughter]

6. Arianna is now a pig's trough?

[MineralMan]

7. Arianna is nothing if not contradictory.

I'm amazed that anyone sees her as a progressive. Where the wind blows, you'll find Arianna's hair blowing with it.

[Vinnie From Indy]

8. The hell with HuffPo - I rarely went there anyway

Arianna should at the very least give the regular writers some money from the cash out, but I doubt she will.

Cheers!