Apparently Huffington Post isn’t satisfied with the fact most of its writers work for free
No more free meal ticket. In the days of Old Journalism, publishers paid writers for their work. But in the days of Instant News Aggregate Journalism, the writer pays the publisher for the privilege:
How bad is the job market for media types? A charity auction for a two or three-month internship at the Huffington Post has collected bids as high as $13,000.
“Jumpstart your career in the blogsphere,” the listing suggests, “with an eye-opening internship at The Huffington Post in New York or Washington.”
The auction’s beneficiary, The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, seems exceptionally worthy. But are unemployed media wannabes really this worthless?
I know that this is for a charity and so I’m perhaps being too cynical, but given that Huffington Post has raised over $25 million in seed money so that it can continue to profit off the work of thousands of unpaid “citizen journalists,” you would think they could afford to just write a check for the damn $13,000.
Do you have any idea how much of Huffington Post’s content is being rewritten or appropriated from other sources in journalism without compensation?
A lot of the Huffington Post stuff I see linked on the Retort consists of two things:
1. A couple weak sentences around large quotations from mainstream media stories, with a small link at the end or no link at all.
2. A bunch of photos without credit that look like they were plagiarized from other media.
I’m not talking about user-submitted blog posts and commentary. I’m referring to stuff that looks like it’s generated in house, like these examples:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/05/carrie-prejean-topless-ph_n_196817.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/13/asymmetrical-shine-michel_n_203104.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/13/kiefer-sutherland-surface_n_202823.html
The sad thing is that those who bid might actually think that serving an internship there will rocket them into success.
Chances are all it will do is make them poorer. They have the same odds of making a name for themselves by writing on their own sites and putting the same amount of time but a heck of a lot less money.