The Newspaper Guild of America, which represents 26,000 media workers across the country, has called for a strike of unpaid writers against The Huffington Post. The Guild is joining the art publication Visual Arts Source, which represents fifty artists and had also called for a boycott several weeks prior. According to the Guild’s website:
[The Guild] is committed to fair compensation for all workers, whether they are freelance bloggers or traditional employees. We are further committed to promoting quality journalism. Working for free does not benefit workers and undermines quality journalism. […]
Our intent is to encourage the Huffington Post to do the right thing. We would all love to continue contributing, but only if the terms are fair and promote good, healthy journalism. This is about supporting the quality and integrity of a vehicle for progressive expression, to actually help Huffington Post succeed, but on the right terms. We call on Arianna Huffington to demonstrate her commitment to the working class she so ardently champions in her writing.
In addition to a pay schedule for all Huffington Post contributors, the Guild is also demanding that the site stop posting paid promotional material (“advertorials”) next to other editorial content, saying that the two types of content should be segregated and clearly marked.
But above all, the organization demands that writers stop contributing their work for free until the Huffington Post addresses these concerns: “Just as we would ask writers to stand fast and not cross a physical picket line, we ask that they honor this electronic picket line.”
No news yet on how Arianna Huffington or the rest of the AOL crew will respond to the gauntlet, if at all. At a recent paidContent media conference in New York, Huffington said she found the idea of unpaid bloggers going on strike as ridiculous as celebrities and personalities boycotting self-promotional (unpaid) television appearances. “Go ahead! Go on strike! What does it matter?” she said. “[N]o one really notices!”
UPDATE: The Huffington Post’s response, here.
I continue to be bemused by all of the people up in arms about the Huffington Post exploiting its worker bees. No one is forcing the bloggers/reporters in question to submit their work to HuffPo - they're doing it of their own volition, whether for possible career advancement, increased exposure to their own web sites, just plain egoboosting, or whatever other personal reason they have. If they send their material to HuffPo voluntarily and in full knowledge that they will not get paid, then I don't see that it's anyone else's business.
#1 Posted by JG, CJR on Thu 17 Mar 2011 at 04:43 PM
This is a joke, right?
#2 Posted by nolanimrod, CJR on Thu 17 Mar 2011 at 11:37 PM
Huge eyeroll:
No news yet on how Arianna Huffington or the rest of the AOL crew will respond to the gauntlet, if at all.
Well, they will probably snicker, like the rest of us, at such a ridiculous gambit.
Just who do they think they are, dictating content and editorial judgement of a private news organization like that? Of course, they wouldn't DARE try this kind of ham-handed publicity stunt against the Murdoch empire, who employs all of the presidential candidates for the GOP, who openly contributes to rightwing organizations and who finances, organizes and orchestrates Tea Party riots across the country.
And hey, while we're at it, how about an "electronic picket line" against the Poltico boyz for their blatant Drudge-baiting headline-mongering and wholesale republishing of GOP press releases. Poltico's Jake "Fast-Break" Sherman and Mike Allen openly collaborate with Darrel Issa's shop, suggesting -- no, demanding -- various investigations of the Obama administration, as outlined by Kurt Bardella, and an item of open gossip in beltway journo circles (to much disdain, I have to say).
Nope, the rightwing media gets a free pass from the Newspaper Guild. Why do you suppose that they dare not go there, but feel free to harass Huffington? My opinion is that the Newspaper Guild been set up to go after Huffington's liberal shop by their right-wing funders.
#3 Posted by James, CJR on Fri 18 Mar 2011 at 12:27 AM
LOL...
This is a simple case of sticker shock.
The "professional journalists" of the world, having sunk a couple of hundred grand into "journalism" degrees at Columbia or Oberlin or Wherever, actually think they are "professionals"... Had they devoted the time and energy to procuring the education necessary to engage in a real profession, we wouldn't be hearing a peep out of them now.
In actuality, unlike licensed lawyers, doctors, architects, or even trade professionals like barbers, plumbers or electricians, who have to meet strict educational, experiential and proficiency requirements ... The truth of the matter is that the self-proclaimed "professional journalists" are nothing but unlicensed typists. There are no standards. There are no licenses. There is no minimum competency. There is no regulation, ergo there is no "profession". Deal with this reality, you "watchdogs"!
ANYBODY who can type print at an eighth grade level can be a "journalist".
What's happening here is that a new group of people are exploiting a "revenue agnostic" medium in the internet to refute the liberal/commie nonsense that the MSM has heretofore foisted upon the general populace. These people don't have a student loan problem and they aren't interested in making money - they just want to get a message out.
And the "watchdogs" here don't like it.
Boo hoo.
#4 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Fri 18 Mar 2011 at 12:28 AM
Guild.
#5 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Fri 18 Mar 2011 at 12:51 AM
"Tea Party riots..." James, you're such a tool.
#6 Posted by Paul in NJ, CJR on Fri 18 Mar 2011 at 08:13 AM
Actually I find this an interesting sideways inversion of the migrants/immigrants-taking-our-jobs blaming. In the case of immigrants (or migrants) the anger is directed at those taking low-paid jobs even though neither the complainers nor the migrants had the power to create the low-end jobs (which undercut the mid-level jobs, many of which were originally the same jobs at higher pay).
In the case of HuffPo the payscales are determined by HuffPo and so the blame goes to the deciding class. But a note to the side, this is also:
1) a route many of the original bloggers chose in order to get published by anybody in anything, regardless.
2) this was already an established pattern of mostly free contributions when HuffPo decided to join the model, first as blog then as publication.
3) This is also the idea that information should be available to be a free society (in terms of knowledge, not income) which has been the basis of the internet/then/web which really has its basis in the idea of academic sharing.
I think what really triggered the reaction has somewhat less to do with a simple pay question as it does with:
1) MSM being shown up again and again as not living up to its supposed "duty" of public safeguard.
2) Finding MSM articles (safeguard question disregarded) on HuffPo and many others when the MSM did the legwork while non-MSM gets the pub credit.
3) The hugh cash deal with AOL
4) The still uncertain financial model for publishing anything on the web (or internet via other means, such as machine-dedicated apps)
#7 Posted by Mike Strong, CJR on Fri 18 Mar 2011 at 11:15 AM
1. Actually, many of the contributors -- accomplished professionals with established reputations -- were promised money which never materialized. Please see Facebook.com/heyarianna/ for specifics.
2. Some of the contributors were happy to help drive traffic to the previously unknown Huffington Post on their own dime because it was a startup. It is no longer a startup.
3. We most definitely can and are going after Murdoch and several other publishers who are taking advantage of the glut in journalists (the bloodbaths of 2008-2010 severed nearly 36,000 working professionals from American newsrooms) to pay next to nothing -- or, in the case of Huffington, nothing.
4. We (the Guild) have no funders -- right wing, left wing or otherwise.
5. How did you hear of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan? You kept tuning in to news sources, didn't you, assuming you were getting accurate, fully vetted information. Whether the story is unfolding in Libya, New Zealand, Egypt, or Wisconsin, journalism is demanding work, and its practitioners deserve a decent buck for a decent day's work -- no different than tile setters, urban planners or radiologists.
6. Arianna Huffington is in a position to do tremendous good right now, by showing other publishers how you treat people when you turn a handsome profit with the help of their labor. She can set a very fine example, and she has the smarts and the moxie to do it.
Kind regards all,
Rebecca Rosen Lum
Chair, Guild Freelance Unit
#8 Posted by Rebecca Rosen Lum, CJR on Sat 19 Mar 2011 at 01:23 AM
The facebook page is just a confused jumble of seemingly bitter complainers who I've never heard of. Not very sympathetic. Why not name names of these "accomplished professionals with established reputations" and tell us exactly what they were promised and when. Be specific. Are there grounds for breach of contract?
I'm eagerly awaiting your actions in attacking Rupert Murdoch like you have Arianna Huffington. Maybe at that time you will have some credibility.
#9 Posted by James, CJR on Sat 19 Mar 2011 at 02:17 AM
Reading this all the way from Kenya, Africa it is very interesting. The same friction between bloggers and the mainstream media is experienced here but albeit on lazy paid journalists re-taking up posts without any attribution.
The Haffington Post move is a dream for every blogger as a business venture or to increase readership and comments, which is a dream of every writer (personally i thought of corresponding to HuffPo on Africa).
But if Arriana Huffington's comments: “Go ahead! Go on strike! What does it matter? [N]o one really notices!” is anything to go then it shows undiplomatic leadership, in any divide of the debate.
#10 Posted by Manuel Odeny, CJR on Sat 9 Apr 2011 at 06:46 AM