

Huffington Post Contributors Go on Strike - bconway
http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/huffington-post-contributors-go-strike-25199

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ChuckMcM
This dispute will be worthwhile to follow. Lets look at the 'value' equation
here:

Value received: Reader gets content to view/read. Price paid: Advertisements
are pushed with content. Market Evaluation: CPM

The more advertisements and advertising 'gimmicks' (click throughs, pop
unders, talking flash) that readers deal with raises their perceived 'cost' of
the content.

The more Ad clicks, views, mouse-overs, demographic sharing/tracking the web
site gets increases the revenue generated by the content.

Costs associated with generating the content - CMS operation, rights clearance
(author, images, other media).

There is lots of evidence that as people put more and more intrusive
advertisements on their web site readership goes down (higher 'cost') and
mitigation efforts (AdBlock, Flashblock) go up (user attempt to lower the
cost). Interesting experiment at Ars with blocking content if Ads are blocked:
[http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-
blocking...](http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-
devastating-to-the-sites-you-love.ars)

Versus the paywalls (very explicit cost structure for readers).

All this adds data points to the questions of 'can readers distinguish between
good content and not-good content' and what is the marginal value of 'good
content' vs 'farmed content'.

Really fascinating to watch these systems getting tested and evaluated in real
time in the real world.

~~~
jonnathanson
Also fascinating to see how the free market will settle on the price of the
content writers' services. Historically, one could argue that digital
ecosystems have placed a clear value on timeliness over quality and depth,
with some notable exceptions.

Unfortunately, I just don't see much of a future for long-form, written
journalism on the web as a viable profession, unless you are the owner-
operator of the content shop or blog. When people want timeliness, they'll go
to timely sources. When they want depth, they'll go to message boards or
social media channels. The latter are much more dynamic and "living" sources
of deep information than static articles are.

Finally, the HuffPo contributors need to keep in mind that they tied their own
bonds here. They volunteered their services for free in the first place. If
you place such a low value on your own work, what do you expect you're going
to get paid for it?

I have sympathy for the writers in this situation, and for writers in general.
In many respects, though not professionally, I count myself among their ranks.
But the way people consume information is changing fundamentally, and
journalism gigs as they've traditionally existed are anachronisms.

Best way to get paid, if you're determined to be an individual content
writer/contributor? Build your brand, market the hell out of yourself, and
build a following. The size of your following is your most tangible indicator
of worth on the market for your services.

~~~
ChuckMcM
"Unfortunately, I just don't see much of a future for long-form, written
journalism on the web as a viable profession, unless you are the owner-
operator of the content shop or blog. When people want timeliness, they'll go
to timely sources. When they want depth, they'll go to message boards or
social media channels. The latter are much more dynamic and "living" sources
of deep information than static articles are."

I think the Jury is still out on this. I subscribe to the Economist and read
it primarily digitally on my iPad. I suspect a lower priced 'digital only'
Economist will bring in some additional revenue there. And I don't think we
have yet seen a 'long form' journalism vehicle which is digital only so its
still very hard to tease apart the costs vs revenue. (if there is one then I'm
not yet aware of it)

Would love to hear about such a project if one exists.

~~~
jonnathanson
Fair point. By "long-form," for the purposes of my post, I was referring
really to anything longer than a handful of paragraphs. The definition of
"long-form" itself is changing and is arguably becoming meaningless. But I'd
consider HuffPo to be an example of what I was attempting to refer to.

------
cagenut
you see a lot of this wailing and gnashing in the media blog echo chamber, but
since this is HN I'd like to point out how blatantly off base it is.

one, contributors to "the blog" (the left column on the homepage) are the
internet equivalent of a "letters to the editor" page or a cable news guest
brought on to have their (employers) say.[1]

two, the traffic generated by those posts is a small fraction of overall
traffic. Nate Silver did some spitball math on it a week or two ago and came
away with the right understanding.[2]

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/10/huffington-post-
blo...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/10/huffington-post-
bloggers_n_821446.html)

[2] [http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/the-
econ...](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/the-economics-of-
blogging-and-the-huffington-post/)

------
ojbyrne
It's kind of mind-boggling that the most left-wing, union supporting,
socialist website on the planet pays the people who produces the content on
their site _zero_. I'm mostly progressive/left-wing/Canadian, but that fact
alone makes my want to switch sides in an instant.

~~~
scrod
Really? _Huffington Post_ is the most leftist/socialist site on the planet?
Maybe in the eyes of Fox News viewers. Arianna Huffington herself
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianna_Huffington>) is very, very far from
being affiliated with socialism.

Here are a few (well worth reading) sites that are actually closer to your
description:

<http://www.zcommunications.org/znet>

<http://monthlyreview.org/>

<http://links.org.au/>

~~~
bonch
Huffington Post likes to post headlines and blog posts praising all things
green energy, Obama, and NBC. The bias is pretty obvious. The original point
of the site was to be a left-wing alternative to Drudge Report--even the name
is a play off of it. Ariana Huffington herself has spoken at several Democrat
events over the years and is considered politically left-of-center.

------
beej71
A hard lesson to learn the hard way, but there you are. Everyone should have
seen this coming as a likely potential outcome for the site.

Either get an agreement ahead of time, or run your own site.

And this being said, I'll bet most authors' takes would turn out to be
surprisingly small.

~~~
salemh
The argument for Huff Post (and others) has always been "exposure" but I can't
recall ever following a contributing author to other sites from Huff Post
(which I don't frequent as much lately) or any other news site.

------
jackfoxy
Too bad _Atlas Shrugged Part 1_ has already been wrapped. They could have
written into the script the high-minded progressive talking head convincing
others to contribute their labor "for the cause" cashing out for millions.
This is synchronicity.

------
jacques_chester
As I recall, HuffPo's traffic isn't dominated by the blogs, it's dominated by
being a link aggregator / discussion site. In terms of its web genes it has
more in common with Slashdot than DailyKos.

