Write for free!: Huffington Post Chicago débuts

Since I groused about Arianna Huffington's business model over at Romenesko's Medianews (nutshell: writers work for free while Arianna sells ads), Huffington Post Chicago has made its début. It's the first of many localized sites that Ms. Huffington is planning as online Internet newspapers of sorts, featuring a mix of ruminations from her celebrity pals (Chicago already has essays by John Cusack and Saturday Night Live guy Fred Armisen) and local content gathered from other unpaid sources.

Armisen's contribution isn't likely to dim misty cigar-smoky memories of Mike Royko:

Public transportation is really good in Chicago. Travel tip: to get a nice view of the city, take the Brown Line.

And I love the chocolate made by Vosges, which is based in Chicago. They make these really crazy chocolate bars -- and not the dumb kind of crazy. I mean the brilliant kind of crazy. They actually make a chocolate bar with BACON! Is there anything yummier?

Is Armisen kidding? Is Arianna kidding? I read better, more informative stuff on any neighborhood blog in town. Hell, I read better stuff on the bulletin board outside my building's laundry room. As for Cusack's musings, a blogger calling himself "So-Called Austin Mayor" noted:

Unfortunately, in that short piece, Mr. Cusack misspelled the name of former Cub, Larry Biittner. And he misspelled the name of former Blackhawk, Chris Chelios.

And the HuffPoChi's inaugural post repeatedly misspelled the name of a former member of the Chicago Bulls -- a fella named Michael Jordan.

Michael Freakin' Jordan!

I guess if you don't need to pay writers, you don't need to pay copy editors either.

Right now on the front page of HuffPost Chicago, the writing is more professional. Unfortunately, it's also less original: a writeup of Bernie Mac's funeral and a Cubs story (both taken straight from the AP), and a bunch of links from the Chicago Tribune, the Sun-Times, Chicago Business, and other papers.

In other words: professional newsgathering organizations have paid professional writers to do professional work, and then Arianna comes in, creates links to their creations, and sells ads on her own page. How progressive.

That's not right. That's beyond not right. That's just The Drudge Report with an Eva Gabor accent.

Think she can't do it in your city? Well, she can, and she intends to:

We plan to roll out local versions of HuffPost in dozens of cities. So check out HuffPost Chicago and use the comment section to let us know what you think, what you want more of, what you want less of, and what cities you think should be next.

No, I'll do it here:

1. I think it's shabby, Arianna.
2. More pay.
3. Less ripping off writers.
4. Stay the hell out of New Orleans. We've been ripped off enough.

If you're getting the idea this is personal, it is. I've been hired to consult with Gambit, the alt-weekly here in New Orleans, and I'm working on their Web site, Blog of New Orleans (aka Gambit Daily). We're introducing guest bloggers on the site (bloggers, it should be noted, whose work kicks the shit out of Messrs. Cusack and Armisen) and the first rule was: guest bloggers get paid. (Not much, but they get checks, fill out tax forms, the whole W-9 yards.) I wouldn't be asking them to do it otherwise -- I've been agitating for years against the cruel hoax of "writing for exposure," and I believe what writers do is worth money. And respect.

And speaking of respect: peep out what the progressive HuffPost folk did to Marilyn Ferdinand, one of their many "unpaid citizen journalists" or whatever they call them. Marilyn came across my anti-HuffPo letter and had an experience of her own:

As some of you know, our site is affiliated with The Beachwood Reporter. I went to listen to some panel discussions at the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication conference held last week in Chicago, one of which included Steve Rhodes, the founder and general manager of The Beachwood. Afterwards, Steve, another journalist, and I chatted, and one topic that came up was the advance work The Huffington Post was doing to get writers for its Chicago site. I was not approached, but both of them had been and were asked to work "pro bono," in other words, for free. Arianna Huffington is a multimillionaire, yet she is asking professional journalists to work for free. We all thought this was outrageous. If she wants to give space to unqualified celebrities like Deepak Chopra to write about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that's her business. They don't need the money, but they like the visibility....

The Huffington Post-Chicago premiered today. The comments thread under the site's introductory post were very positive, thrilled that Ms. Huffington chose our terrific burg to splash down in. That'll teach New York and Los Angeles who The Second City isn't! I thought I'd like to greet HuffPo a little differently by posting Allman's letter with my own comments. I'm still a registered HuffPo blogger from my brief stint with OfftheBus, so it should have gone up unmolested. It didn't. I watched the "Comments Pending" number carefully, seeing it go up and down and eventually reach zero. Strangely, my post didn't appear. I wrote another post that said HuffPo was censoring my comment, and it didn't appear. I tried another approach and responded to another comment with information that HuffPo doesn't pay its writers. It didn't appear either. I sent a final comment announcing my intention to write about this disgraceful disregard for working people and the censorship that seemed to be underway to ensure a lovefest for HuffPo's entry into the Chicago market.

I don't agree with Marilyn that it's "censorship" -- the Huffington Post is privately owned, and the editors can do whatever they like with the comments. But it's damned amusing that a "progressive" site neither pays its writers nor brooks dissent among the unpaid.

When my letter appeared on Medianews, I heard from a couple of professional journos who said the same thing: "Good for you" and "Oooh, you took on Arianna Huffington." Took her on? What's she going to do, not pay me to not write for her?

So I'll close here by throwing down. I have an interview request in for Arianna with Mario Ruiz, her VP of media relations. We'll see if she'll talk to me for free.

In the meantime, if any professional writers want to join in here, feel free to do so in comments. Let's get this party started. Journalism -- and journalists' jobs -- are already on life support.

DO NOT WRITE FOR THE HUFFINGTON POST FOR FREE.

Comments

[Marilyn]

Hi Kevin. Thanks for the shout-out and for getting this sham out in the open. Maybe Ms. Huffington should have realized after the Marshall Field's protests that Chicago wouldn't roll over and die.

As to censorship, I wasn't intending that to mean gagging the press. Not allowing certain things to appear on her site is certainly within her purview, but she is still censoring the site. I have done that on my blog, but only with some anti-Semitic comments to a documentary about Hitler I reviewed. I consider hate speech inappropriate, not to mention, illegal. In my case, the only thing I was hating on was Ms. Huffington's "style."

[Kevin]

No problem, Marilyn. I'm just glad to see that some Chicagoans aren't falling for the HuffPo BS that it's somehow a form of new media when all that she's doing is what Matt Drudge has done for years: providing links to other people's work. Her twist is somehow convincing bloggers that she values their work enough to feature it...only not enough to, you know, actually pay for it.

I'm gobsmacked at the number of people whose kneejerk reaction is "Hurray, she's killing the Old Media." Most of her content (so far) is coming from "old media," and the rest comes from people who are willing to work for free. This is new? This is progressive?

If Chicago writers are willing to rise up and speak up against this crap, I've got your back. Wanna pass this on to your buddy Steve at the Beachwood Reporter?

[Marilyn]

I'll definitely let Steve know. He'll probably show up here himself to comment. The Beachwood is a popular site, especially with journalists. The word is out. We'll see what happens next.

[Schmaltz]

Thanks for publicizing this write-for-free outrage. I'm sure Arianna Huffington's books aren't given away for free.

[David Winkler-Schmit]

Nice job, Kevin. The fact that HuffPo is censoring the comments section just shows Arianna's true colors. Kind of like a (red) devil in a blue dress. And if she's looking for "talent" I hear that Ari Fleisher is available these days when he's not lying about the Green Bay Packers or New Orleans Saints.

[Scott Harney]

Well after hearing your comments at Rising Tide Saturday I wanted to check this out. HuffPo occasionally breaks some national news so I do read it from time to time via Digg. But I'm totally with you on this one -- they can stay out of NOLA. We don't need 'em. We already have a vibrant local community and you can just check the blogroll of any number of New Orleans bloggers to see more.

If HuffPo local does try New Orleans, I suspect it will be about as successful as Starbucks. New Orleans has always had a coffee culture and Starbucks really couldn't compete with the local shops. Similarly, I don't think something like this will gain much traction here. The whole active blogging culture has grown up organically and stands on it own. So something like what HuffPo is doing would whither and die a quiet death. You can see it happening. And then eventually they'll shut it down with some editor complaining about how New Orleanians just weren't engaged enough or some such trash while we continue on doing what we've been doing all along.

Nice meeting you (very briefly), on Saturday.

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Hi. I just happened upon this site and felt compelled to respond. As a writer, I respect your opinion. I really do wish that writers (and other creative people: musicians and actors, for example) got more respect from our society. Seems to me that most creative people struggle financially until they "make it big," at which time they are overpaid for their work. Seriously, should writers, actors and musicians make more than firefighters?

However, having said that, I need I point out that bloggers typically don't get paid by most sites, i.e., wordpress, myspace, facebook, etc. If the Huffington Post were to begin paying bloggers that would result in their having to limit the number of writers who could participate. That would result in a kind of censorship too--by limiting the number of people who could express their opinions on the site. I think the purpose right now is to provide an opportunity for a variety of people to blog on the site. As with most blog sites, the reason people submit blogs is to get their voice heard. Many writers are happy to get published on Huffington Post (as well as many other sites or publications) even though we're not being paid just because we want to get our names and our work seen. What's wrong with that?

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