Blogger rejects Washington Post's 'blagoscabbing' offer

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on May 3, 2010 at 4:03 PM

The Washington Post is creating a "local blogging network," in which the newspaper will link to selected blogs from its Web site, Adam Pagnucco of Maryland Politics Watch wrote last week. As part of the network, the Post would ask bloggers to submit original content, which would be edited by Post editors. The Post would also have rights to that content through a written agreement, and expect that bloggers participate in a blogger "discussion" each week and stick to a "workflow" plan.

The only problem with the set-up is that the Post wouldn't actually pay the bloggers, he stated.

Pugnacco wrote in the Maryland Politics Watch blog: "Five weeks ago, I received an unsolicited offer from the Washington Post. They asked if they could post my picture and biography on their Web site and link to every new blog post appearing here if I agreed to produce regular original content for them at their request. I turned them down. Why? Because they wanted me to work for them for nothing."

Using Google subscriber counts, Pugnacco estimates that "MPW's rag-tag band of volunteers, guests and rogues has slightly more regular online subscribers than the Post's entire paid staff of Maryland reporters combined. Remind me again why WE should be working for the Post for free?"

Mediabistro pointed out that although the metric isn't scientific, the Post doesn't release its site visit statistics publicly.

Post spokesperson Kris Coratti, however, told mediabistro that the Post believes "there is value in the additional traffic it will drive to their blogs and in having their writing exposed to a new audience."

In addition, Pugnacco stated that using unpaid bloggers also has implications for journalists currently working as paid columnists. "If bloggers fill their functions for free, the Post will inevitably phase them out. In the labor movement, we have a term for workers who undercut other workers and threaten their jobs: scabs. As a labor guy for sixteen years, I have no intention of blogoscabbing."