Dissed again.
This time, it’s cartoonist Garry Trudeau knocking the Huffington Post for paying writers in “exposure.”
Trudeau is in good company: The Huffington Post has been dissed by the best, from Chris Hedges to Stephen Colbert. The first editorial cartoonist to win a Pulitzer Prize, the Doonesbury creator was just named one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” by Time magazine.
In a Doonesbury strip published April 9, first in a series highlighting the twisted economics of online media, laid-off reporter Rick Redfern gets a call from the Huffington Post with an invitation to join the ranks of its unpaid bloggers.
“We think you’d be a perfect fit at the Huffington Post, Rick,” says a voice at the other end of the phone line.
“And why is that?” asks Rick, sitting at his computer. “Are you under the impression I’m looking for unpaid work?”
“OK, so we don’t compensate bloggers, but it would be great exposure,” the caller says.
“Exposure?” says Rick. “Can I eat exposure? Can I smoke it?”
No hard feelings, said HuffPost’s Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim, a self-described “big Doonesbury fan.”
“I thought it was funny,” he said. “Good comedy is often unfair, and that’s ok.”
Bloggers howled: “A riot,” said one who asked to remain nameless.
“It takes someone like Gary Trudeau to illustrate the absurdities and contradictions of the Huffington Post,” said former blogger Molly Secours, whose posts on racial disparities in education, employment and criminal justice drew hundreds of comments on the HuffPost site.
The strip was “well timed,” Secours noted. A judge just threw out a lawsuit by bloggers seeking compensation for work which they say helped beef up the value of the Huffington Post to $315 million when sold to AOL.
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Join us at 12 noon Saturday, May 19 for “Thriving as a Freelancer,” a talk with three former newsroom staffers — a reporter, a blogger and a photographer — whose careers have flourished despite the competitive market.
