March 02, 2011
Liz Goldner, Editor
HUFFINGTON POST
With the approval of Bill Lasarow, publisher of ArtScene, a west coast art journal that I write for, I am sending you his monthly Visual Art Source newsletter, sent out on February 26, 2011. The newsletter addresses an issue currently in the news, regarding the Huffington Post and its new merger with AOL. Bill also sent out a strike notice about this issue, reprinted in part in my Huffington Post page, and reprinted in publications around the country and the world. (See links below that address Bill's strike notice and the issue in general.)
VISUAL ART SOURCE NEWSLETTER
For the better part of the last year Visual Art Source has been re-posting a number of the articles we publish in this Weekly Newsletter to a nationally branded website owned and operated by the author of a book titled "Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream."
That author is Arianna Huffington, the website in question being the Huffington Post. After reflecting on and discussing with our writers and editors the array of professional and ethical issues implied by that affiliation we have made the decision to suspend any further contributions of our writers' work. You will receive a copy of our strike notice later today.
Two central concerns have been present from the start: Is exposure to Huffington Post's extensive audience and widely recognized brand simply a fair exchange for not being paid a penny? Is it acceptable for serious writing to appear alongside press releases, shill pieces paid to promote a third party, and junk journalism without anything to distinguish them as such? We went to our writers before beginning to post last year and the response was overwhelming. Go ahead and post. Yet less than one year later the reaction to our possible withdrawal is just as decisive.
Visual Art Source and our partner publications, ArtScene and art ltd., pay our writers for the professional work that they contribute. We help them reach many tens of thousands of art fans, creatives and specialists like yourself, but we do not pay them "in kind" for that contact with you. Not just because they are paid, but in keeping with the ethos of payment for due diligence, these writers regularly prove themselves to be serious pros whose opinions are vested in experience. Because we pay, a standard of quality and knowhow is applied to the content that gets published. And because the Huffington Post does not, they invite contributors to publish as much or as little as they like on whatever subjects they like. Does this add up to freedom or mere free-for-all? Hey, you decide.
There is something appealing about this, on the surface allowing for robust free expression and the opportunity for the individual writer to build their own audience and opportunities to profit (should they be so inclined). Given the bustle of activity, it's not unlike the street performers at, say, the Venice Boardwalk, free to attract their own circle of attention and solicit nickels and dimes that they get to take home.
If I was and remain disapproving of the damage to the standard of excellence posed by the Huffington Post's failure to allow for the slightest distinction between serious journalism or opinion and a press release, it was this quaint analogy cast against the AOL sale that established the true nature of Ms Huffington's business model. She boasts, by her count, a talent pool of about 9,000 free of charge contributors. And that has translated into over $300 million dollars. The company payroll for this? Zero. OK, they claim to have 200 paid employees to program, edit and administer. Recently they have raided a handful of Howard Fineman types from collapsing segments of the corporate media such as Newsweek. Congratulations to you Ms "Abandoning the Middle Class."
This is no union shop. No indeed, Ms Huffington has approximately 9,000 independent partners working on her sole behalf. For any who fail to see the good humor in this disjunctive equity, as her staffperson Mario Ruiz quipped in one case: "How do you resign from a job you never had?" Huffington has brilliantly and gracefully exploited thousands of otherwise bright and qualified professional writers. She is reveling in both wealth and celebrity, having been lifted by the combined efforts of this army of the uncompensated. Bravo Madame Capitalist.
We have enjoyed our own audience in this corner of the cultural universe for some time, and have done what we can to cut the writers in on the action because we think it moral. With $300 million of working capital in hand I can assure both our writers and readers that piece of the action would only increase. Thus we have decided to call for a strike of the unpaid, non-unionized, and unemployed Huffington Post contributors. Let all writers cease to contribute for now, and until the executives at the Huffington Post negotiate a proper contract with those writers they ought to deny them the profit-generating benefits of unpaid labor.
Are you with us?
Bill Lasarow
Please read my Huffington Post page for more information
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