In the Alamo Foundation case, the workers didn’t themselves feel exploited, per se, but the courts ruled that their work was unfair for other businesses competing with the foundation. Writers who contribute free content to a website may be individually happy to do so, but collectively, that work contributes to the overall trend of devaluation of writing as a skill and a profession. If the only online news sites that make money in the current publishing climate are the very ones that pay their writers the least, the danger is that this assumption that writers will never share in that success will gradually shift from a singular unfortunate trade-off to the industry norm.
The News Frontier
06:00 PM - February 10, 2011
AOL Settled with Unpaid “Volunteers” for $15 Million
Why the HuffPost bloggers won’t be so lucky, and why that matters
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
This is the best moment to be in journalism (25)
The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom (18)
The completist guide to Star Trek
Matt Yglesias watched every Star Trek movie and every episode of every TV show in the franchise
The uncomfortable questions not raised by Benghazi
The press and Congress are asking the wrong questions
Rob Ford in ‘crack cocaine’ video scandal
A video that appears to show Toronto’s mayor smoking crack is being shopped around by a group of Somali men involved in the drug trade
Why the underwear-bomber leak infuriated the Obama administration
The threat of even grander leaks
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
For your and your readers' further edification, Lauren, you might read Jason Linkins piece here How The Huffington Post Works (In Case You Were Wondering) where he explains clearly and patiently the difference between what he, a paid HuffPo journo does compared to HuffPo bloggers, and he also addresses the paid use of aggregated content. It always helps to start with the actual facts, and then make your argument. Your piece wasn't bad, but your headline and the fact that you are comparing the AOL case with HuffPost tells me that you are a mite uninformed here. Either that, you you are committed to the anti-Arianna zombie lies that are being spun out by the MSM.
Please read and let me know what you think.
Cheers.
#1 Posted by James, CJR on Fri 11 Feb 2011 at 08:51 AM
Thanks for reading, James. Yes, I saw Linkins' piece yesterday - there is, of course, a difference between HuffPost's dozens of paid staff reporters/writers/editors and their thousands of unpaid non-staff bloggers (just as there is a difference between AOL's paid computer programmers and designers and unpaid volunteers). I don't think anyone's saying that their paid writers should be paid more - at issue are the thousands who aren't paid at all. In this piece, I'm only comparing the latter -- the HuffPost bloggers and the AOL volunteers. You'll see that by the end of my little thought experiment I conclude that the comparison is not, in fact, a direct one, and that's the point.
#2 Posted by Lauren Kirchner, CJR on Fri 11 Feb 2011 at 10:13 AM
Yeah, I did note that you concluded that the cases weren't really comparable, nor was it comparable to the Alamo case. As I said, the piece wasn't bad; actually, it was pretty good on second reading. My objection really goes to the framing, evidenced by your subhed, and your presenting the argument of Rutten way up high, which is completely off the mark and fact-free. I thought it rather biased that you didn't present the actual facts as represented by Linkins and others that go to the reality, along with the distortions peddled by Rutten and seemingly the entire MSM. Perhaps I'm just taking objecting to a stylistic issue. Anyway, thanks for responding. Much appreciated.
#3 Posted by James, CJR on Fri 11 Feb 2011 at 11:58 AM
IF it was proven that the HuffPo gets more readership, thus creating more public presence, ultimately resulting in the deal with AOL, due primarily to its free blogging community then conceivably that is an unfair advantage/competitive edge over newspapers who pay their writers. Those newspapers might have to join the unpaid bloggers in filing a lawsuit. Alas, however, many of the newspapers also have unpaid bloggers. A brilliant legal mind might be able to distinguish these facts and the bloggers could have their day in court.
#4 Posted by KathyV, CJR on Fri 11 Feb 2011 at 06:57 PM
Jaron Lanier voiced the regrets of the Internet generation in his recent book, "You are not a gadget," in which he lamented the "information wants to be free" meme, which has turned into "You can work for us for free." I wrote about this in the blog post at http://www.lubetkin.net/2010/01/12/open-inversions-getting-paid-%E2%80%93-and-doing-online-things-right/.
George Lucas told Kara Swisher in response to a question about YouTube that he was amazed at how many people were willing to work for free. We have a filmmaker who just got thousands of people to submit Day in the Life videos so that he can get his name in the IMDB and go to Sundance and everywhere else on the talkshow circuit to tell how great social media and crowdsourcing is for making a movie. So far as I can tell, no one is being compensated for their contribution, but he's sure living large on the buzz.
Now, Ariana Huffington collects a $315 million payday on the backs of people who contributed free content, and everyone is shocked, shocked, that she's not sharing it?
Come on.
They got what they deserved when they agreed to this business model. Someone asked me a while back if I was interested in bartering for podcast production.
My response was, "Sure, I will barter podcasts for cash."
It's really simple. Don't work for people who don't pay you.
Steve "@PodcastSteve" Lubetkin
Managing Partner, Professional Podcasts LLC
http://www.professionalpodcasts.com/
@PodcastSteve on Twitter
steve@professionalpodcasts.com
#5 Posted by Steve "@PodcastSteve" Lubetkin, CJR on Fri 11 Feb 2011 at 08:50 PM
I was a community leader for AOL for three years in the 1990s. How do I get my share from that class action lawsuit?
#6 Posted by Tom, CJR on Tue 12 Apr 2011 at 05:54 PM