Ariana Huffington’s major cash out on the Huffington Post hasn’t been without incident, and the noisy group of unpaid sweatshop writers who provided much of the site’s multi-million dollar content haven’t shut up- they’ve filed a class action lawsuit.

The suit is headed by writer and union organizer Jonathan Tasini, himself an unpaid HuffPo contributor up until three days after the Aol buyout was announced. Tasini has tangled with media giants before, winning a settlement against the New York Times over the fate of freelancer content.

I posted a few weeks back about the ethical spot Huffington herself is in with the allegations- she often spouts off on TV, rightfully and righteously, about corporate exploitation of the middle and working class while herself gaining massive wealth off the unpaid contributions of writers. To argue no one is forced to spend hours researching and writing a HuffPo post is to lend credence to the idea no one is forced to work excessive hours in dangerous conditions with no paid time off or health coverage, wouldn’t you say?

Huffington recently penned the book Third World America, and in a lengthy screed, described the impetus behind the book:

It was the way that Washington rushed to the rescue of Wall Street but forgot about Main Street. It was the daily drumbeat of depressing statistics: One in five Americans unemployed or underemployed. One in nine families unable to make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans on food stamps.

Upward mobility has always been at the center of the American Dream — a promise that if you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll do well, and your children will have the chance to do even better.

Well, that promise has been broken, and America’s middle class is under assault. The American Dream is becoming a nightmare.

What became clear while writing the book is that the decline of the middle class was no accident. Middle-class America didn’t suddenly lose its mojo. It was the result of tricks and traps. Tricks in the ways we financed our homes. Traps in the ways credit-card companies used hidden fees and fine print and skyrocketing interest rates to get their hands on our money, driving more and more people into debt.

The suit will definitely interest anyone who makes their living writing for the web, and could stand to change conditions for exploited freelancers in this fairly horrific job market. What do you think about the move to sue Huffington and her blog? Do you think the court will side with the writers or the media empire?

HuffPo, Aol, Arianna hit with lawsuit by unpaid bloggers is a post from: The Inquisitr

Off the bat, I will admit to having an intense girl-crush on Arianna Huffington.

I’ve been an ardent fan of both Politically Incorrect and Real Time with Bill Maher for a decade and a half, and I find Huffington’s passionate pleas on behalf of the exploited middle and working class during her frequent appearances to be moving, convincing and compelling. Admittedly, I haven’t read two of her books dealing with the issue, “Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America” and “Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream,” but both have been on my “want to read” list for quite a while.

And when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert responded to internet demand for an anti-Tea Party (and thus, really, anti-corporatist) rally on the National Mall last fall, Arianna was there to bus my whole city to the protests on the HuffPo’s dime. I wanted to cover her sweet, aging-resistant face with kisses.

So why is she so hell-bent on not paying writers?

Despite Huffington’s massive financial coup in selling her well-trafficked namesake property to AOL a month ago, HuffPo has a minor image problem on the internet. The site has been lambasted time and time again for a few large issues with which it is associated- one being low-quality content based on search trends, and one being reposting something that is already posted elsewhere (Stewart poked fun at this facet just after the rally buses were announced on his show, and Colbert has even created the “Colbuffington Repost” to repost the reposting.)

Perhaps the most frequently recurring bad press Huffington and the HuffPo is subject to, however, surrounds treatment of the very people who supply the content that enabled such a big cash infusion in February. The site’s big name writers- celebrities, politicians and their ilk- are not the ones driving traffic to the site in numbers enough to support it. It’s an army of unpaid freelancers who better know which topics are currently driving traffic right now- writers the vocally anti-exploitation Huffington laughs at when confronted with the idea that perhaps they should be compensated for the work they put in to power her very-successful blog empire.

When asked late last week at a conference about HuffPo contributors calling for a strike, Huffington pooh-poohed the idea that writers should be paid, and likened the free labor to a high profile television appearance:

She argued that blogging on the Huffington Post is equivalent to going on Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart or the “Today” show to promote their ideas.

And, she said, there are plenty of people willing to take their place if they do.

“The idea of going on strike when no one really notices,” Huffington said. “Go ahead, go on strike.”

The issue is sticky, to be sure, and many hobbyist writers are happy to do decent quality work in exchange for exposure (quick: name a HuffPo writer than isn’t Bill Maher, Sarah Silverman or Russell Simmons.) And I speak from a point of great bias- as you know, I am a full-time blogger myself. To say I frequently reflect upon how lucky I was to receive my first real writing gig from an editor that not only treats me more fairly and compensates me more proportionately than any on-site employer I have had in my nearly 32 years of life is an understatement, and being able to afford to do what I do is a luxury I never take for granted. The fact of the matter remains, though, that if writers are not compensated for their efforts, no one could possibly afford to be a singularly-focused, dedicated writer for the web- a circumstance Huffington seems fine with perpetuating and even helping to establish as a new media model of revenue.

It’s not just Huffington’s writers that suffer from her notion that the amount of time spent culling, researching, editing and adding images to content is not worth any sort of compensation whatsoever- writers everywhere who must turn to the web in increasing numbers to supplement plummeting interest and employment opportunities in old media and print are similarly harmed. To devalue this emerging profession at this critical time is not just harmful to the writers currently locked into being compensated unfairly or just not at all in this horrific job market, it’s setting the stage for grossly under-compensating the people who will provide content for the web in the future-and ensuring that people who wish to pursue this sort of work will never be able to do so as a full-time job.

Given Huffington’s repeated dismissal of the idea she pay her writers even a pittance, it’s unlikely she will revise this stance in the near future. Which is a shame, because it really does serve to undermine her many valid points about the poor treatment of regular working schmucks in this country, and the wealthy people determined to profit off their hard work guiltlessly while pocketing massive profits.

HuffPo writers strike- why Arianna Huffington’s wildly successful media empire is harmful to web workers is a post from: The Inquisitr

While fans of The Daily Show may have been surprised at Arianna Huffington’s seemingly on the spot offer to bus any New Yorkers who required a lift to Jon Stewart’s “Rally To Restore Sanity” or Stephen Colbert’s “March To Keep Fear Alive,” the announcement came as a shock to Huffington’s “people,” as well.

Huffington explained how the idea, estimated to cost around $250K so far, came to pass as she prepped for her TDS appearance:

“Jon and I were talking in the green room about the rally. I said, ‘Oh my God, how are those people going to get there?’ On the air I decided to make that offer, it was spontaneous, and nobody knew. My people were in the green room with me, and even they had no clue.”

The night after the announcement, Stewart poked fun at the Huffington Post’s reporting style when recounting the segment:

“Oh my God, Arianna just Oprah’ed the buses!” Stewart said the following night. “By the way, I hope that her announcement was real and not some Huffington Post thing where it’s not like actual transportation, it’s just embedding a link to Greyhound. Like, I hope they’re not just being bus aggregators in this situation.”

HuffPo president Greg Coleman conceded that the price tag for the rally buses would be quite high for the tens of thousands of riders who have RSVPed, but he says that the company is reaching out to “marketers” and that they see the event as an “opportunity.”

[TheWrap via Gawker]

Cost of HuffPo ‘Sanity’ buses? $250K so far is a post from: The Inquisitr

An ad placed by the Huffpost at MediaBistro calls for editors as follows:

The Huffington Post is looking for web editors with expertise in the following areas: sports; technology and gadgets; and books.
Each editor will create and manage one of three new sections — Sports, Technology & Gadgets, and Books — being launched on The Huffington Post (huffingtonpost.com) — “The Internet Newspaper.” Editors will develop “destination” pages by overseeing news and a subject-specific group blog.

The Huffington Post is already the webs largest blog (the term is used loosely), delivering 195 million page views a month according to Quantcast, and the site sits in 1st spot according to Technorati.

(via Fishbowl NY)

Huffington Post expanding into sport, tech and books is a post from: The Inquisitr

The localization of the site, which was announced by founder Arianna Huffington in June this year during the Future of Journalism event staged by the Guardian newspaper, is a move that shows the company’s direction towards covering all news, not only politics.

“We are aspiring to be a newspaper in that we want to [be] covering all news, not just the political blogging the way we began,” Huffington said in June.

Why Chicago?

“We’ve decided to start with Chicago because it’s always been a great news town – offering a vibrant mix of politics, sports, business, music, food, and urban life. Transferring The Huffington Post’s blend of news, opinion, and community – delivered with our familiar look and attitude – to a local level, HuffPost Chicago is part local news source, part resource guide, and part virtual soap box – featuring a collection of bloggers who know and love Chicago, and are looking to share their takes on everything from the Cubs to City Hall to the hot new local band to the best place for Greek food (and I can testify that there is a lot of that in Chicago!),” Huffington said in a blog post.

So, are we going to see some competition now for local Chicago sites like Chicagoist.com?

Huffington Post Launches Local Site in Chicago is a post from: The Inquisitr