HuffPost Dismisses Labor Blogger

[LongTomH]

Mike Elk has an interesting post over at the Michael Moore website: Dismissal Signals Change in Direction for Huffpost:

Last Thursday, I was "fired" as a labor blogger from the Huffington Post by executive business editor Peter Goodman for helping a group of union construction workers disrupt a conference of bankers. (I put fired in quotations marks because I, like the majority of people who blog for the site, was not paid for my contributions.) The workers demanded to know why Pulte Group's vice chairwoman was leading the summit, and how her company grabbed a $900 million government bailout made up of funds that came from the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009. That bill was intended to create jobs and extend benefits to unemployed workers, but union workers said no jobs were created with this money.

Goodman, who was recently hired away from the New York Times, informed me in a phone conversation that he received complaints from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) about my role in disrupting their convention. I received media accreditation for the conference based on my status as a blogger with the Huffington Post. I then shared my accreditation with a union leader in order to help him gain access to this event.

Goodman said this warranted the termination of my role as a blogger with the Huffington Post. During our phone conversation, he said I misrepresented my relationship as a blogger with the Huffington Post, and he compared my actions to those of disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair. Up until last week, my relationship with the Huffington Pot consisted of me producing over 100 posts without them paying me a dime.

Huffington Post recruited Mike Elk as a contributor because: "its editors thought I could tell an entertaining and often edgy story by personalizing my involvement in labor struggles." He did not receive pay for his articles and was never offered a contract. He remained because HuffPost did not place any restrictions on what he could write about and because it offered him an opportunity to represent the struggles of working people.

The action that led to his dismissal was his decision to take an activist stand at the Jan 19 Mortgage Bankers Association summit in Washington, DC. He got in by identifying himself as a blogger for Huffington Post. He also shared his press credentials with a union leader, which helped that leader get 200 members of the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades onto the conference floor. The union members were protesting against the Pulte Group, one of the largest homebuilders in the US. Union members complained that Pulte received $900 billion in tax breaks from the federal government, which was intended to create jobs. The jobs never materialized, in fact Pulte has laid off workers.

Union members apparently have a valid beef with Pulte; but, editor Peter Goodman informed Elke that his 'stunt' had damaged Huffpost's reputation. This was the first time that Huffington Post has dismissed any blogger for using 'guerilla tactics' in pursuit of a story. Mike Elk's departure means that the Huffington Post no longer has any full-time labor blogger or reporter. Does this signal a shift to the right by the website?

The Huffington Post has helped redefine journalistic rules and ethics. Now, with actions like my dismissal and the hiring of mainstream establishment journalists like Howard Fineman and Peter Goodman, it's signaling that it is abandoning its guerilla roots and adopting a more mainstream, corporate style of objective journalism. This strand of corporate journalism was unable to expose unnecessary wars and looming economic catastrophes. It has failed us time and again. In contrast, my unconventional actions helped expose a nearly $1 billion scandal.

[Omaha Steve]

1. K&R!

[SteppingRazor]

2. Meh. If I were Goodman, I'd have fired him too.

Mike Elk would still be blogging at HuffPo if he had either:

1) Cleared with HuffPo what he was going to do; or

2) Just made up some media organization for the trickery, and then wrote about it on HuffPo

The problem for Huffington Post was not what Elk did. It was that he used their name to do it.



Full disclosure: Like Elk was until recently, I occasionally blog for free at Huffington Post. So please do take what I say with a grain of salt.

[madfloridian]

3. Glad you disclosed that. I disagree with you.

They hired him a labor blogger, didn't they?

Sounds like Huff Post is getting the feel of Howard Fineman.

[SteppingRazor]

5. Well, for starters, they never really hired him.

Second, even when you are hired as a freelance writer, much less an unpaid blogger, if you go around using that publication's name and then pulling shit like Elk pulled, what do you think is going to happen?


Don't get me wrong -- I love what Elk did. But there were better ways to go about it, as I outlined in my previous post, and if he insisted on going about it this way, he should have known he was burning the bridge.

[w4rma]

4. He dug too deep for Goodman's comfort level. (nt)

[msanthrope]

6. I'd have fired him, too....

"I received media accreditation for the conference based on my status as a blogger with the Huffington Post. I then shared my accreditation with a union leader in order to help him gain access to this event."

That's a no-no. If the blogger wants to do something like that, he should obtain credentials on his own merits and lend them out.

[GeorgeGist]

7. corporate style of objective journalism?

Me thinks the author is pulling his own leg.