The class-action lawsuit being brought against the Huffington Post on behalf of unpaid bloggers demonstrates that not all organizational problems can be solved through transparency alone. The facts in the case are not in dispute:
- Arianna Huffington’s eponymous news aggregation and blogging site relies on a network of some 9000 bloggers to produce the bulk of its content, very few of whom are ever paid in any way for their contributions.
- America Online acquired the Huffington Post for $315 million.
The damages sought in the lawsuit are $105 million on behalf of the unpaid bloggers, 1/3 of the purchase price of HuffPo. More facts not in dispute:
- The non-premium (unpaid) bloggers account for less than 1/3 of the HuffPo’s traffic
- These bloggers understood they would not be paid when they signed on
It’s helpful that all parties are looking at the same set of facts. This would be a very different story if there was any indication that the sale price had been obscured, that bloggers had been misled, or if the relative traffic contributions were unknown.
However, even with a common set of undisputed facts, this case will come down to an assessment of what is fair and what is reasonable — which facts on their own can’t provide. The HuffPo argument is that these bloggers provide this content as a way of getting their names out there, likening writing blogs for theHuffington Post to being interviewed (unpaid) by a TV show. The bloggers argue the site has become a hugely profitable business at least in part because of their contribution, and that they deserve a share.
While I sympathize with the bloggers, I don’t think they have much of a case. To knowingly agree to do something for free and then come back later and complain that you weren’t paid for it…
On the other hand, if the current set-up strikes them as unfair, there are certainly within their rights to refuse to write anything more for the Huffington Post, perhaps until the blogger compensation plan is updated. Then the HuffPo will have some decisions to make concerning the value of these particular bloggers, their options for getting content elsewhere, and the potential damage to a noted progressive site’s reputation when it is portrayed as exploiting workers — a charge that is central to the lawsuit.
In the end, a common set of facts won’t solve these problems. But there is a chance that it will help expedite coming to a common understanding of what’s fair and what’s reasonable.
Cross-posted from Transparency Revolution. Please join the discussion there.
