The moment was a telling one. At a Senate hearing on the future of newspapers two years ago, media mogul Arianna Huffington was essentially telling those assembled that the idea of actually paying journalists for their work was so, well, passe.
David Simon, creator of "The Wire" and a former Baltimore Sun reporter, had just testified that newspapers needed to be able to erect so-called paywalls and charge for their online content in order to survive.
Huffington's response? "The idea that the Baltimore Sun could charge for content that would only be available to those paying for a subscription to the Baltimore Sun seems to me so antiquated," she said.
Looking rather bewildered, Sen. John Kerry, who was overseeing the hearing, cut in: "It's a product, it's created by somebody, it's intellectual property. Why is it antiquated for them to be paid for their product?"
Kerry shouldn't have been surprised. For all her high-profile involvement in the news business as co-founder of Huffington Post, Huffington herself has never been much for paying the people who actually produce what's now called content, what some of us still call journalism.
Indeed, a sizable chunk of Huffington Post's content comes from unpaid bloggers and articles that are aggregated - a polite word for stealing - from other news websites. (According to one estimate, fully 40 percent of what HuffPo runs is aggregated.)
To grasp HuffPo's business model, Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times writes, "picture a galley rowed by slaves and commanded by pirates."
So now comes word that AOL has bought HuffPo for an estimated $315 million, with a cool $100 million or so going to Huffington herself. Not a bad payday for someone who doesn't seem to think news is worth paying for.
Newspaper monopolies from back in the day have been rightly criticized for putting profits before the product, even when the product was reaping sky-high margins unheard-of in most industries. And don't get me started on the gulf between what publishers and CEOs were being paid and what the grunts in the newsrooms were making.
Now, with many of those monopolies collapsing, the prophets of the digital media age are telling anyone who will listen that information wants to be free. Apparently the reporters and editors who gather and analyze that information are supposed to work for - you guessed it - free.
Journalists, these prophets tell us, must now be entrepreneurs, which is another way of saying this: Fend for yourself, pal. And more often than not these same prophets are hailing Arianna Huffington and her ilk as the enlightened pioneers of this brave new world.
All of which puts me in mind of a lyric written by The Who many years ago:
"Meet the new boss,
Same as the old boss..."
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Comments
Ilk–perfect word for the monster and her cabal of think-alikes. She and her cohorts can go jump. I have seen it too many times. Some overly rich, pocket-bloated boss with workers paid next to nothing. What they are going to find is that young talent no longer needs them. We don’t have to buy equipment for journalism. All we need is a website and each other. Goodbye tyrranical bosses, and goodbye to your money and your disgusting leer-sized lifestyles. Hello good life.
I couldn’t agree more. Based on this and a similar story in the Times yesterday, I’ve decided to stop visiting HuffPo and only get my news from sources who pay their writers — and my formerly-high opinion of Arianna has plunged since the buy-out, which I fear has revealed her true colors.
It’s so alarming that the craft of journalism — fact-based research and clear, strong writing — is being undercut and devalued at a time when we most need it.
When I got started in this business 10 years ago, I remember the publisher saying he was in the best business ever because he could keep us for pennies. “They love to write, and they’ll do anything for the opportunity to do so.” Disgustingly predatory and largely true. The attitude has permeated the areas we cover, as well. They want it NOW and they want it FREE. Accurate and complete aren’t even a consideration. And don’t get me going on news versus entertainment.