As you’ve probably heard, the Huffington Post was recently bought by AOL for a whopping $315-million. Now, Arianna Huffington, who founded HuffPo less than six years ago and will head up the newly formed Huffington Post Media Group, is coming under fire. New York Times executive editor Bill Keller blasted Huffington in a recent op-ed as the “queen of aggregation” who is profiting from posts by “unpaid bloggers and news reports from other publications.” Journalist Chris Hedges likens her to a “business owner who uses largely unpaid labor, with a handful of underpaid, nonunion employees” for personal gain. And a group of writers headed up by Artscene publisher Bill Lasarow have gone “on strike,” refusing to offer up any more free content until their demands for payment and a clear divide between editorial content and promotional materials are met. But journalist Robert Scheer argues that the unpaid bloggers (which include him) whose content appears on the Huffington Post aren’t exploited. What is HuffPo’s business model? Who gets paid and who doesn’t? Will that – should that – change now? What impact will this mega-merger ultimately have on traditional news organizations?
Guests:
Bill Lasarow, Publisher, ArtScene, a guide to the fine art galleries and museums of Southern California
Robert Scheer, Editor in Chief of Truthdig; longtime journalist whose columns appear in newspapers across the country; regular contributor to “Left, Right and Center” on KCRW; professor of communication, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
Chris Hedges, is a weekly columnist for Truthdig and a fellow at The Nation Institute; his most recent book is “Death of the Liberal Class”