Monday (2/28) on the Los Angeles Times blog Culture Monster, David Ng writes, “Arianna Huffington, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, has long espoused progressive political views, which has made her website’s reliance on unpaid writers a rather awkward sticking point for the left-leaning pundit. Now Huffington’s values are being put to the test by a group of arts writers, largely from Southern California, who are asking to be paid for their contributions to the site. Writers for the websites ArtScene and Visual Art Source said Monday that they are declaring a ‘strike’ against HuffPo, to which they have contributed content since the summer of 2010. In their announcement, the writers listed two primary demands: that a pay schedule be proposed and initiated for all contributing writers and bloggers, and that paid promotional material no longer be posted alongside editorial content. … Bill Lasarow, the publisher and editor of the two websites, said in an interview that the move is ‘not a hostile act in any sense whatsoever,’ but added that the writers felt ‘like they were being taken advantage of by the company to make an enormous profit.’ He said that the action was prompted at least in part by the HuffPo’s recent sale to AOL for a reported $315 million.”
Posted March 1, 2011
