HuffPo Takes Time to Lecture Writer It Never Took Time to Pay

In your wide-ranging Tuesday media column: HuffPo lashes out at an unpaid former writer, NBC's worth revealed, Reuters wants to be like us, and Jay Rosen tells a story.

  • Uh oh, the HuffPo is STRIKING BACK against Mayhill Fowler, the unpaid citizen journalist who publicly declared she was quitting writing for HuffPo because they wouldn't pay her. "How do you resign from a job you never had?" HuffPo asks. Bitchy! Well that was the argument itself, wasn't it? "At the end of the day, Mayhill Fowler asked for a paid position; we chose not to offer her one. Nothing new media or old media about that." Fair enough! So why put out a statement at all, when that fact was never in dispute? "One recommendation: in the future, she should refrain from publishing private emails with her editors without their permission. This happens to be both an old media and a new media ground rule." Haha. A ground rule in actual jobs, maybe. That requires a paycheck.

  • How much would you pay for the NBC Network? Negative $600 million, if you're smart, because that's what it's worth, according to one analyst. And that's without Jeff Zucker in control. You can imagine how bad it was before he left.

  • is totally jacking (a timid version of) Gawker Media's commenter policies, which we'll take as a compliment to our tech people.

  • Here is an interesting little piece by media blogger Jay Rosen on why he never actually became a journalist, despite having so many god damn opinions about journalism. (Many of them good!). This is a "little" piece by Jay Rosen standards, meaning it is under 5,000 words. I suspect this may be a contributing factor to his lack of journalism career also. In any case: smart guy!
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