In the wake of The Huffington Post‘s $315 million sale to AOL, two arts writing groups will no longer provide free content for The Huffington Post website until they are paid.
Fat chance, snorted Ariana Huffington. According to a news article on thewrap.com, Huffington “dismissed the notion that all bloggers should be paid, given the wide platform HuffPo gives them. She argued that blogging on the Huffington Post is equivalent to going on Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart or the Today show to promote their ideas. And, she said, there are plenty of people willing to take their place if they do.”
Sound familiar? It’s the same argument food writers get about why they should not be paid (or paid almost nothing) to write guest posts and web content. It’s all about the exposure, dahhhlings. Doesn’t everyone know that? (See this recent post from colleague Sarah Henry on that topic.)
Steam came out of my ears as I read Huffington’s assertions. But I was also curious. Is the HuffPo food section all about self-promotion? I headed over to find out.
Here’s what I found: Bloggers write short posts and link to their blog sites or promote their books. Authors write [Read more…] about Should HuffPo Pay For Writing That's Basically Self-Promotion?
