3 Responses to “When Free Media Labor Goes Bad”

1. David44 says:

   January 25, 2011 at 10:53 pm

   “prostituted himself for free”?  Well, I’m no expert, but that might make him a slut, but not a prostitute.

2. David44 says:

   January 25, 2011 at 11:08 pm

   I should add that he would be a hero where I came from for helping labor throw the hypocrisy and corruption of the mortgage bankers in their faces.

3. lucia says:

   January 26, 2011 at 12:14 pm

   What an odd story– so many questions come to mind.
   In light of that history and working arrangement, I felt it reasonable to identify myself as a “Huffington Post labor blogger” on January 19 when I attended the MBA summit in DC. I chose to share my credentials with a union leader — a decision that helped 200 workers enter the conference
   
   Did the people at the MBA summit verify credentials with Huffington somehow– so as to differentiate between “real” press and “bloggers”? (If that matters.) How did Mike Elk “share” his credentials with someone else? Did he just hand his badge over to someone else?  (That would be unethical.)  How Mike Elk letting in this one other guy help 200 workers get in? Did the other guy sneak over and open the door?
   Eventually, I started receiving funding from outside groups to write for the Huffington Post. Social Security Works, a coalition of trade unions and progressive organizations, recently provided me with a grant to deliver exclusive original investigative reporting for Huffington Post about an accident
   Has Huffington Posts business model been to ‘hire’ bloggers for free with bloggers hoping at some point other groups will give them money to write stories that then appear on Huffington’s Pages?  That would be a very odd business model giving outside groups an opportunity to shape news.  Odd.
   Was helping union workers disrupt a conference of bankers an ethical thing for a journalist to do? This is a subject for debate.
   
   Of course this is unethical.
   In my view, however, it’s unethical for publications like the Huffington Post to not have a single full-time labor reporter, and for corporate media to routinely ignore workers’ struggles.
   
   Not really unethical. It means their coverage on that issue is lacking, but that’s not unethical.
   This reality forces freelance labor journalists like myself to pull stunts in order to hold corporations accountable and get workers’ voices heard.
   Nonsense. The fact that HuffPo’s labor coverage is inadequate doesn’t force any freelance labor journalist to obtain and then misuse press credentials.
   In contrast, HuffPo was pretty much forced to “fire” this guy.  Otherswise, conferences will no longer provide press credentials to HuffPo “journalists” whether they are paid or unpaid.