When you think credible journalism, does the Huffington Post come to mind?
Probably not. A notoriously opinionated blog and aggressive aggregator isn’t taken too seriously in the news business.
Journalism faces an identity crisis as the very definition of “journalist” is debated. Ironically, the Huffington Post is answering this question more assertively than many peer institutions.
HuffPost merged with AOL two months ago today, making Arianna Huffington the new media group’s president and editor-in-chief. She insisted both firms must professionalize their amateurish cultures and promptly dismissed 200 freelancers to make room for staff reporters at AOL, which will also slash 30 blogs.
But for many of HuffPost’s 9,000 unpaid blog contributors, the $315 million deal produced tantalizing visions of pay schedules. When they realized their status wouldn’t change, immense backlash ensued.
Do the terms “#HuffPuff” or “Visual Art Source” mean anything to you?
They weren’t significant to Huffington, but both embody blogosphere protests against her site. The former is “citizen journalism” advocate AdBusters Magazine’s witty Twitter alternative to corporate media. The latter publication sparked an official “bloggers’ boycott,” demanding paychecks and an editorial overhaul.
And then national communication workers union The Newspaper Guild got involved.
TNG requested a meeting with HuffPost’s head honchos. It received spokesperson Mario Ruiz’s published “distinction between our newsroom staffers and our group bloggers — most of whom are not professional writers but come from all walks of life, from officeholders, students, and professionals to professors, entertainers, activists and heads of nonprofits.”
At the new mega-media company’s staff meeting, Huffington herself demarcated the blogging-journalism disparities: “Blogging is … people expressing their views,” whereas journalism is professional and, by definition, paid.
Most of these part-time bloggers’ entries promote themselves and their latest products. If they were remunerated, we’d slam them as advertisements. But the pro bono nature essentially makes their blogs press releases and Huffington their public relations agent. Whatever you call it, it’s not journalism.
As baseless crusades expand, they tend to fracture internally.
The blogging community at Forbes Magazine and HuffPost’s own Tom Hayes oppose their boycotting brethren, while TNG and its vocal affiliate, the Guild Freelancers, ultimately unveiled the strike’s true purpose.
GF said the unpaid contributors enjoyed the industry’s “glut in journalistic talent” which, according to its parent union, “[allowed] Huffington to avoid hiring a paid journalist for the same coverage.” Their free labor was a commodity, not a complaint. GF also supports donating opinion pieces and cites blogging as an example.
Their fundamental question is most damning: “At what point, when a media venture becomes very profitable, do its owners owe the public some return investment in journalism — and journalists?”
Fame is a fickle friend, as is its close cousin, fortune. Huffington is no more a sellout than her opportunistic bloggers.
The system, with which they had previously been content, never changed. But potential post-merger earnings skyrocketed, and these volunteer bloggers want to cash in. They hate corporate media but can’t deny it pays well.
Both entities rhetorically invoked “quality journalism,” but only one is actually implementing the ideal. The Huffington Post has modeled a crucial lesson: Quality journalism doesn’t revolve around biased blogging or profit.
But this idiotic boycott may ultimately benefit the media. It would clear out the bloated industry, leaving the work — and higher wages — for those who understand journalism is about broadcasting the truth, not the self.
Bloggers and reporters are as dissimilar as content aggregators and journalistic institutions, and the AOL-HuffPost fledgling requires much work before reaching the latter status. But the elimination of these hobby-lobbyists is a small step in the right direction for both the news media and the public.
Kelly Hotard is a 19-year-old mass communication junior from Picayune, Miss. Follow her on Twitter @TDR_khotard.
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contact Kelly Hotard at [email protected]