The Huffington Post Doesn’t Pay its Bloggers
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November 6th, 2015

The Huffington Post Doesn’t Pay its Bloggers

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The Huffington Post doesn’t pay its bloggers. They’re a profitable company with an enormous market valuation, but they exploit the writers who’ve made them what they are. They’ve been doing it for years, with the blessing of the courts. And I’m not just annoyed by this because they tried doing it to Wesley Crusher.

I’ve been “Huffed” too. Five years ago, I noticed they’d written an article transcribing a Candorville strip. They repeated it word for word, and described the action. I wrote to the author and asked why they didn’t just pay to run the cartoon itself, or at the very least link to the cartoon on my website (not that that would’ve been a good substitute for payment, but at least it wouldn’t have been a kick in the slap in the face). I sent them the contact info for my syndicate. Instead of licensing it, they simply – immediately – deleted the article.

In retrospect, whoever wrote that article probably didn’t get paid a dime for it anyway.

That left a bad taste in my mouth about that site. And soon afterward, sure enough, bloggers banded together to sue; because the Huff Post raked in more than $300 million in a sale to AOL, and still didn’t pay them. They lost, of course, because as the judge said, nobody “forced” them to give their work to the Huffington Post for free.

I’m not surprised by any of this. Publications have always offered writers and cartoonists “exposure” in return for free content. But it’s especially galling when a supposedly “liberal” site takes advantage of its workers.

But there’s one thing about all of this that I appreciate: whenever I hear about them ripping off their contributors, it reminds me of my late godmother, Angie Trevizo. She’s probably the one person in my life who’s most responsible for my never being taken advantage of as an artist.

When I was 13, I volunteered to draw for free, just so I could know that someone liked my artwork enough to commission it. I was at my godmother’s house in Hacienda Heights. My godsister Terese Trevizo Arballo and my god brother Phil were out in the pool, and I was on my way there too. That’s when I overheard Angie mention to my mom that she was going to pay $300 to license artwork for her school’s jackets (she was a principal). Their mascot, as she envisioned it, was a tiger wearing a knight’s helmet. I poked my head into the room and said “I’m volunteering to draw it for free.”

She said “No you’re not,” and she wrote me a check for $300 on the spot. That was more money than I’d ever imagined at that age. Every time someone offered me the “privilege” of working for them for free, I thought back to that look my godmother gave me and said “no thanks.” I’ve never worked for “exposure,” thanks to her.


Discussion (4)¬

  1. Rob L. says:

    Do you still have a copy of the mascot you drew for this? We all want to see it now, you know.

  2. Peter Martinez says:

    Colbert 11/5: “Big Questions with even Bigger Stars” skit w/Bryan Cranston. Lying on a hillside (your roof) w/a friend (your Susan) and Colbert (you) musing on “deep” thoughts as mostly a soliloquy. Make sure they do a shoutout to Candirsville.

  3. John says:

    Wait, this is the Candorville comic for Saturday 11/7? Because the WashPo ran a substitute strip in its hard copy today. What sort of backroom deal do they have with the HuffPo that would have them make such a decision, I wonder?