Comments on: Huffington talks convergence, and “monetizeable free”

By: How HuffPo “Pays” Unpaid Contributors « Predicate, LLC | Editorial + Content Strategy

Tue, 25 May 2010 16:03:35 +0000

[...] via Arianna Huffington, Huffington talks convergence, and “monetizeable free” » Nieman Journalism Lab. [...]

By: Journalism Today - Tracking Media Changes

Journalism Today - Tracking Media Changes — Fri, 21 May 2010 08:49:48 +0000

[...] Huffington talks convergence, and “monetizeable free” (Nieman Journalism Lab) [...]

By: Fleurdamour

Fleurdamour — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:13:28 +0000

She talks around and around this issue, but it always boils down to the fact that she is riding on the backs of her contributors and other news organizations. Sure, “free” is monetizable if you don’t share the ad revenue you make against content you didn’t pay for in the first place. I especially love the statement about how happy HuffPo is when other organizations call to contact their bloggers. They’re happy to see them get paid, they just don’t want to do it. This woman is the biggest hypocrite. She needs to stop trying to justify hereself.

By: Joe Shea

Joe Shea — Thu, 20 May 2010 12:23:14 +0000

Please forgive my typos in the previous post. After 15 years online, I can’t see the keyboard anymore!

By: Joe Shea

Joe Shea — Thu, 20 May 2010 12:21:37 +0000

The big problem with Howard Kurtz’s piece (and his discussion of it on CNN) was his mistaken suggestion that the Huffington Post was “the first real online newspaper” (the word “real” was emphasized in the news ticker on CNN. How short our memories are! The first real online newspaper, which was recognizsed as such in the landmark 1st Amendment case Shea v Reno, was and is The American Reporter, which started before the Cybertimes and Washingtonpost.com and any other online daily with original content = it was online before the Drudge Report, which started three blocks away in Hollywood two weeks later.
AR continues tro have its own reporters, and it paid out revenue-sharing in its very first month of operation. In 1998, it got the global scoop on the IRA ceasefire that endyures to this day, through its content partnetr Nando.net. Salon and Slate came along a couple of years latrer, after the American Reporter had risked its existence and saved the Internet from government censorship by challenging the Communiocations Decency Act and getting it ruled unconstitutional in Manhattan Federal Court and affirmed in the US Supreme Court. It has poublished daily and continuously since April 10, 1995. The HP’s “firstness” was a poor premise for Kurtz to jump from, and I think he knows it. He doesn’t make many mistakes but that was one.

By: Jane Stillwater

Jane Stillwater — Wed, 19 May 2010 23:47:55 +0000

It’s really hard to go where the news is if you are a journalist operating on a shoestring budget. Sure, it was cheap to embed in Iraq but if I want to get out there and write about the person on the streets of Baghdad, I must be prepared to shell out major bucks — and mostly only “legacy” news outlets can do that. Or else I could win the lottery….

By: Paul Wiiggins

Paul Wiiggins — Wed, 19 May 2010 21:29:52 +0000

Help me help you. Show me the money. One got all the visibility needed as an undergraduate. And even then news organisations paid cash

By: David Cay Johnston

David Cay Johnston — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:24:21 +0000

Huffington makes a false comparison here. Major newspapers have long paid their op-ed contributors. Over the years I have been paid between $100 and $500 for op-eds.

By: Amanda Spake

Amanda Spake — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:23:58 +0000

Gee, do you think my mortgage company will take “visibility” for its monthly bill instead of dollars?

By: Oliver Wiest

Oliver Wiest — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:52:27 +0000

Might not that word in the last sentence be audition rather than addition?