Who’s Afraid Of Arianna Huffington?
Syracuse University’s journalism school will next week honour Arianna Huffington, and already alarm bells are going off inside traditional media: Why honour a woman who doesn’t pay most of her writers, undermining the school’s own graduates?
Ad Age’s Simon Dumenco is shuddering:
Really, the school — which exists to train journalists — should know better than to honour a woman who thinks journalists should work for free!
…Now please excuse me as I crawl under my desk and curl into the fetal position.
It’s true that there’s something awkward about Huffington’s award; we said so last month.
But if it’s Huffington’s volunteer model that makes you feel queasy, it’s time to get over the feeling, because the internet mogul is hardly alone in exploiting unpaid contributors. Just this morning, the New York Times‘ David Carr wrote about a group of laid-off New Jersey journalists whose independent website, it turns out, earns enough to pay them all of $US42 per week.
And the Times itself is experimenting with citizen journalism, on its Brooklyn blog “The Local.” In fact, newspapers across the country have been tinkering with unpaid online contributors for years now.
If you’re going to cower in fear of Huffington, it should be because you have to work for her. It’s far too late to fret over her successful — and widely copied — business model.
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
I love Arianna!!
jinxykb
@htotheomo: The internet cutting into revenues fits with what @hilikusopus said about bureaux being closed.
It's best not to look at this as good or bad; this is just a shift in the news market. In the interim, however, there will be some pain for journalists in a flooded market. This should subside once fewer people graduate from journalism school.
sample032
Corrections: " " " political blog " " "; Technorati.
moraliste
And yet her " political blog " is always ranked number one on Technoratit.
moraliste
@htotheomo: Wow. I went to Terre Haute and back with that post.
@sample032: and there are fewer jobs for journalists because companies are shutting down foreign news bureaux, and investigative journalism, because it's so much cheaper to do tabloid celebrity news, local news, and to accept what an "anonymous high ranking administration official speaking off the record because he doesn't have authorization to comment publicly on sensitive matters" is telling you and report it as news instead of checking whether what they say is true or to analyze and follow up (and the same goes for some talking head going on the record).
@sample032: It couldn't be that the internet has decimated revenues because of classified ads. It couldn't be that we get our news online rather than buy that paper thing people keep talking about.
Yes, there are too many journalists, which is how we got into Iraq and started torturing (and those are the examples I can think of).
Perhaps you are right: if we have fewer journalists, we'd have a more vibrant press.
The issues surrounding citizen journalism have to do with journalistic integrity on the one hand, and pluralism on the other, right? S'got nothin' to do with worker exploitation or blog sweatshops - because, in this case, we're talking about voluntary contributions. It's a little funny that she'd be accepting a some kind of acedemic award from journalists though - maybe she should just get one from the school's A/V club instead.
It's all the fault of them Postructuralists. Neil Postman say, they began the shift from those who created content to those who consumed it. Publishing houses were glad to go along, because it transferred emphasis from writers, whom they must pay, to readers, who paid them. From thence it was only a small step to the audience providing the content for free.
"Derrida eat a peach?" - do not remember who wrote it, and it doesn't matter, because I read it!
@City_Dater: Well played.
Is her model really that successful? Is it profitable yet? I know back in the day it had a ton of investors, but have they seen a return. I keep seeing a lot of internet companies with tons of press about how successful they are, but with no profits or way out. Granted, this woman doesn't care because she has oil money from marrying right to a gay man, but whatever.
rockandhardPL
Anyone with only a light knowledge of economics knows the reason for low pay (if any) of journalists is because there are more journalists than jobs for them. That means Syracuse is the problem: it trains just too many journalists. The Huffington Post just takes advantage of that, but actually does them a favor by employing (with pay or otherwise) journalists and increasing demand.
sample032
As if not paying journalists isn't enough, Huffington has a history of alleged plagiarism from her Maria Callas biography days. Medill remains number one! In your face, Syracuse!
anita l.
If any Newhouse students still think they're going to get paying jobs in media, having Ms. Huffington explain the cold hard facts in her adorable accent is probably the kindest thing SU can arrange.
City_Dater
Because of the title of the post, and because I wish I was somewhere dancing instead of in a cubicle:
+ Watch video
She's prettier than Denton, but I think I'd like his accent better, and his websites too.