The Huffington Post and Liberal Profit
Sara Netanyahu & And the End of the "Liberal" Israeli Press
The Narcissism of "Liberal" Zionists
Conservative or Liberal? Take the Test!
Liberal Hypocrisy on Whole Foods
Rushdie, Booker Prize and Post Colonialism
American liberals love to go on about the narrow self-interest of corporations and their greed, and disregard for their own workers and even shareholders as they solely seek to maximize profit on the back of workers asked to work more for less compensation and benefits. That is the prismatic view of business by the American Left.
The left badgered Republican Mitt Romney because as a partner in a equity firm his company often laid off workers after taking hold of a business. But Romney's firm took over bankrupt companies and needed to shrink payroll in order to restore the companies, and the result of that was short-term minimal job loss for long-term expansion. Staples, which employees 70,000 people now, is an example of that.
So anyway the whole point of this post is to expose the liberal hypocrisy behind what is increasingly looking like less a news site and more a silly tabloid: The Huffington Post. Started by socialite and political activist Ariana Huffington, a former gubernatorial candidate in California, it bills itself as a voice for the Left. And so it is. The site links to news stories of liberal interest and features unpaid blog contributors (more on that later) espousing liberal ideals (although the issue of Israel is tricky since liberals here disagree). Huffington Post has become increasingly popular and Time Warner took notice and decided to buy the firm for over $300million cash. A nice paycheck for sole founder Ariana.
She has taken the money and moved to New York to continue to run not only her flagship but as the AOL media department as well. In order to buy the Post, Time Warner had to lay off over 20,000 workers! Ariana demanded that she be paid in cash and not stock. I mean, could you imagine if a right-wing activist took a buy out deal and demanded cash out right and that resulted in the lay off over thousands of people? What would the Left say about that person? Greedy sonuvabitch!
The Huffington Post often publicized corporate layoffs as "evidence" of the evil of corporate America. But it is now no longer an independent site but part of that evil framework, which laid off people in its name, no less! What will they say (nothing, they ignore the story, naturally). This rather hypocritical manner is shown in another way:
The national Newspaper Guild has upped the ante in a strike against the Huffington Post, calling on all unpaid writers to stop contributions to the website.
The 26,000-member union of media workers asked all unpaid contributors on Wednesday to withhold their work in support of a strike launched earlier this year by the art publication Visual Arts Source, whose writers had previously contributed free content to the Post.
"Join us in shining a light on the unprofessional and unethical practices of this company," the Guild wrote in a press release. "Just as we would ask writers to stand fast and not cross a physical picket line, we ask that they honor this electronic picket line."
The call comes in response to the Huffington Post's "refusal to compensate its thousands of writers in the wake of its $315 million merger with AOL," the Guild wrote, and its refusal to acknowledge requests to meet with Guild officials "to discuss ways the Huffington Post might demonstrate its commitment to quality journalism.”
Ariana made away with more than a quarter billion for a site which would not have achieved its prominence were it not for those unpaid writers, and they receive no compensation?! This is a little off. She should at least create some sort of fund to support promising writers in the name of her unpaid contributors.
The Hollywood-New York writers guild strike was a case in point. Writers were not getting their due from those evil corporations and if I recall the Huffington Post championed their cause. So what gives now?!
Easy to be righteous when it is not you who has to make the sacrifice!
I am not saying that Arianna is a bad women or greedy or anything, but am noting the conspicuous silence on the Left as opposed to the righteous fury that would descend against a similar Right figure.
