Upon the sale of The Huffington Post to AOL for $315 million in February, CJR’s Lauren Kirchner recalled that AOL settled a 1999 class-action lawsuit with unpaid “volunteers” for $15 million, and she pondered whether “a similar case [could] be brought against the AOL/Huffington Post behemoth, today, by the thousands of unpaid Huffington Post bloggers.”
This morning came the news that Jonathan Tasini, formerly one of HuffPo’s unpaid bloggers, has filed a $105 million class-action lawsuit against The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, Ken Lerer, and AOL. (Disclosure: Lerer is a member of CJR’s board of overseers.) Tasini’s resume includes stints as head of the National Writers Union, a Democratic candidate for Congress, and, as Paul Farhi reminds us, a successful class-action plaintiff who won an $18 million settlement from publishers who digitally archived freelancers’ work without permission.
Early reactions to today’s suit include: “ludicrous publicity stunt” (MediaBug.org’s Scott Rosenberg) and “$105 million is an absurd number that will do nothing but grab headlines” (Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan).
Also headline-grabbing: Tasini’s fightin’ words during a conference call this morning with reporters, words that included “slaves,” “Wal-Marts,” and “Lloyd Blankfein,” and a promise to “make Huffington a pariah in the progressive community” (see Jeff Bercovici for more, as well as for a response from a HuffPo spokesperson calling the suit “wholly without merit.”)
More background from Bercovici:
Jesse Strauss, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the suit is based on a claim of unjust enrichment. “The legal theory we’re going on is one based in common law,” he said. “This is not a statutory claim….This is not a contract claim.”
In other words, the fact that the vast majority of Huffington Post’s 9,000 bloggers signed on without any expectation of direct monetary gain is irrelevant to this claim. “Rather, it’s the value contributed to the Huffington Post, which is very much amenable to class treatment,” says Strauss….
“This lawsuit is about establishing justice for the bloggers of the Huffington Post and establishing a standard going forward,” [Tasini] says. “If we want to have a society that has a diverse, vibrant culture, we have to make sure the people that create the content, whether it be words, images, drawings, photographs - those people have to be compensated fairly.”
What say you? Do Tasini et al have a case? Do they have, even, your empathy? Or not?
Hmmm. People who produce something of value ought to get paid commensurately. Where is that in the law? Oh, yeah, here it is, Amendment 13, U.S. Constitution. Let's see, let's see. . . . minimum wage . . . yup, we have that too. . . wage and hour regulations....check.
Is HuffPo an nonprofit enterprise? Looks like no . . . so volunteer exemptions might be limited. Folks don't seem to be interns . . . .
So the question for the courts is, Can U.S. citizens voluntarily forfeit their rights under the law and Constitution?
#1 Posted by edward ericson jr., CJR on Tue 12 Apr 2011 at 05:51 PM
edward wrote: People who produce something of value ought to get paid commensurately....
padikiller responds: Two things...
1. What is "value"? Value is what someone is willing to pay... Which is in this case is apparently nothing.
2. The case could be made that HuffPo could have charged money to give soapbox rental to bloggers... The people who are lining up to sue AOL are the same ones who were begging Huffington for the limelight...
#2 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 12 Apr 2011 at 06:48 PM
Connoisseurs of Huffingtoniana will be amused to know that when CJR and I launched a "Russert Watch" column (later "Sunday Watch" after the untimely passing of Tim Russert) during the 2008 campaign, a cranky letter arrived from a HuffPo honcho declaring that they had started a "Russert Watch" column once before and they owned the name.
They hadn't used the name in quite some time.
They were quite sure they owned it.
#3 Posted by Todd Gitlin, CJR on Wed 13 Apr 2011 at 04:39 PM
How about a "Todd Gitlin Watch"? It's astounding that anyone responsible for the following post on Jornolist is still working in journalism, much less teaching prospective reporters.
Here's Prof. Gitlin, trying to coordinate the message among supposedly impartial journalists. Is this what you teach in Journalism 101?:
“On the question of liberals coordinating, what the hell’s wrong with some critical mass of liberal bloggers & journalists saying the following among themselves:
“McCain lies about his maverick status. Routinely, cavalierly, cynically. Palin lies about her maverick status. Ditto, ditto, ditto. McCain has a wretched temperament. McCain is a warmonger. Palin belongs to a crackpot church and feels warmly about a crackpot party that trashes America.
“Repeat after me:
“McCain lies about his maverick status. Routinely, cavalierly, cynically. Palin lies about her maverick status. Ditto, ditto, ditto. McCain has a wretched temperament. McCain is a warmonger. Palin belongs to a crackpot church and feels warmly about a crackpot party that trashes America."
#4 Posted by JLD, CJR on Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 01:14 AM
I don't remember Gitlin writing any such thing, JLD..
And I read every word of CJR's extensive coverage of the JournoList scandal...
Somebody read through it again and doublecheck for me:
http://www.cjr.org/search.php?cx=002826800558238759205%3Awmx8nk4zs1o&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=JournoList+scandal&x=0&y=0#925
#5 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 06:36 AM
ANYONE who contributed ANYTHING to the HuffPo site should stand to benefit from the FULL value of the final product, valued at 315 million dollars. Let's be clear about what the product is that we are talking about here:
The site grew in value due to the exponential reinforcement of the multiple links, comments, attention, excitement, "networking", sense of community and other contributions by various visitors. Each person who left a comment had a blog page and was recognized for their contributions as a "networker", "superuser" or even a "moderator"! Who is to say that even the most minor snarky comment is worth less than an extremely accurate and well-written article or blog post in terms of increasing the overall value? All visitors who "documented" their visit with a comment contributed to the "hot air" that served to blow up the exponentially expanding HuffPo balloon; a balloon that was attractive enough to bring buyers and big bucks.
One could even make the argument that those bloggers, editors and tech people who were paid would not have standing against the final expansive product as they were paid for specific, well-defined, contributions; they build the sturdy table on which the balloon rests. Taking things further, Ms. Huffington could be held liable for destroying the product, the community, by selling it and keeping all the money for herself, essentially, "popping the balloon".
#6 Posted by murmur55, CJR on Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 11:59 AM
Just another chapter of the larger-than-life, smaller-than-a-decent-human-being saga of Arianna. There will be a great bio written about her someday, and at least one writer will make a few bucks.
I wrote once for the Huffington Post and enjoyed the quick turnaround and international audience. I won't do it again now that it's owned by AOL. Simple enough.
The real problem is that real journalism isn't worth as much as a McDonald's cheeseburger (much less a Big Mac) in the current economy. And Arianna Huffington didn't cause that problem. She was just smart enough to figure out a way to profit from it.
#7 Posted by Susan Zakin, CJR on Mon 9 May 2011 at 12:48 AM