Today, Huffington Post, the popular news and blog site with more than 177 million monthly readers, announced that it will shut down its unpaid contributor program, effective immediately.
According to an analysis by The New York Times, the success of Arianna Huffington’s namesake media site was originally driven in large part by its 100,000-person plus blogger network, which has included aspiring journalists, citizen reporters and notable — sometimes celebrity — figures from multiple industries.
Heather DeSantis | Credit: desantispr.com
But not everyone in the HuffPo contributor program has adhered to the basic principles of journalism, including truth and objectivity. As one media and communications professional, Heather DeSantis, put it in an interview with Newscenter.io, “I have seen many contributors abuse the platform and charge people anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 for a featured article, which is absolutely crazy.” DeSantis is a principal in a PR firm whose clients have included two NFL Players and Panera Bread Co.
DeSantis was referring to the widely known practice of an unscrupulous subset of contributors charging companies fees to write about their products and businesses via the esteemed Huffington Post. To put it simply, there have been incidents of “pay-to-play” journalism. To many companies, a piece or feature story in The Huffington Post could mean thousands of signups and surges in website traffic. But $5,000 placement fees are out of range for many growing companies — not to mention extremely frowned upon among both journalists and PR practitioners.
“Pay-to-play” has also been used in the political arena. According to the same New York Times report, one Huffington Post contributor with the byline “Waqas KH,” published an article about Felix Sater, an associate of President Trump, that he had been paid to write.
Commented DeSantis, “With the recent announcement from The Huffington Post, op-ed writers, contributors, and citizen bloggers need to ensure that their articles are timely, relevant and fact-based, if they hope to have reputable publications run them.”
As it announced the demise of its unpaid contributor program, Huffington Post simultaneously revealed the launch of “HuffPost Opinion” and “HuffPost Personal.” According to the announcement, the new Opinion section will “feature a mix of regular columnists and one-off guest writers, commissioned by our Opinion editors to produce smart, authentic, timely and rigorous op-eds.”
