HuffPost no longer allows independent contributors, but it does still accept pitches for (finally) paid work. https://www.huffpost.com/static/how-to-pitch-huffpost
I’m probably the reason it happened (well, the straw that broke the camel’s back anyway).
This Cracked article from 2017 likely played a part in their decision making. It describes my five years as a HuffPost contributor.
Things were a lot different back then, and I even had an editor at the start. But as time went on, they paid less attention and I took full advantage one year.How I Used Fake Reviews For Tons Of Free CrapThe internet is both the greatest tool for communication, and an endless source of villainy.https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2507-how-i-used-fake-reviews-tons-free-crap.html?ext=.html
Here’s a snippet that discusses some of the history behind the contributors section. The unpaid and uncurated nature led to confusion and their name being used for clout, like “As Seen on HuffPost” is a co-sign.
Buzzfeed grew the same way on the back of unpaid contributor labor.
When my personal blog got some attention in 2013 and The Huffington Post invited me to write for them, I felt really proud at first. Wasn’t this the outlet that had just won a Pulitzer? (It was!) And wasn’t this one of the most read sites in the world? (Sort of!)
Truly, this was an honor.
Then you really take a look at the site and realize how little of it is of any substance. Go to the front page and you’ll get a story taken straight from Reuters — which is a legitimate way of spreading the news, sure, but HuffPost doesn’t deserve credit for that. Then you get a political report that’s a direct rewording of someone else’s linked article, which in turn just reports a single line from a CNN interview. Another article, credited to a “HuffPost reporter,” is 60 words introducing a GIF someone else made, then embedding various reaction tweets. And then come the various pieces that do nothing but summarize late-night comedy videos.
And that’s the sort of high-quality content HuffPost values most — that is to say, the stuff produced by the staff, whom the site pays. In addition to all that, the site uses bloggers (9,000 when I was there), and they aren’t paid at all. They’re just supposed to be thankful for the privilege of writing for such a platform, and for the exposure they’ll receive. HuffPost laughs off criticism that they’re exploiting these bloggers — “when John Kerry writes an op-ed for us, he’s not angling to make $50,” they say. But these bloggers very much do want to be compensated, as hinted at when they put together a class-action lawsuit.
I’ve been published a lot of places, and HuffPost is one of them. The great part is that you get your message exposed to a massive audience.
But things got out of hand when you realize what people would do to get published on such a high ranking site.
However you may feel about it, a HuffPost link makes your site authoritative. Not only that, but I figured out on their backend how to get a profile built on their UK site that makes my reach much more global than localized SEO provides.
I used it to troll Eminem once. That’s a whole story in itself.What it’s like being dissed by Eminem – Thought for Your PennyHe dissed me once, and he did it subliminally, so I don’t get any of the fame someone like MGK gets. It’s not so much that he “sneak dissed” me (which he claims not to do) as it is that I’m just some nobody. Eminem spits pure venom, and I agree with the assessment that he […]https://thoughtforyourpenny.net/what-its-like-being-dissed-by-eminem/
While blogging for free on HuffPost has its ups and downs, it’s hardly the first blow in the path for independent and freelance creators and journalists. It’s a gateway being built much like TV was back in the day where only the trusted get a platform.
Here’s a fun article about how HuffPost asked an author of a book on unpaid labor to blog for them for free.
The response on Twitter was brilliant and caught the eye of the Daily Dot.Huff Post asks author of book about unpaid labor to perform unpaid laborOh, the irony!https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailydot.com/irl/james-bloodworth-huffington-post/%3famp
HuffPost isn’t the only place that harvests free labor.
Medium, Clubhouse, Quora, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Substack, Spotify, and more platforms are continuing to grow their platforms on the backs of free labor.
And it’s getting harder to get published anywhere “mainstream” these days, as so many of your favorite websites unionized to protect their employees.
The business model has evolved a LOT over the past decade. It evolved a lot more since the coronavirus pandemic started.
I do worry about free speech, but I also worry about misinformation. As a blogger, I have to work harder to become newsworthy. It’s just like local news – as long as you focus on the facts, something interesting may go viral.
But the days of running your own website and pushing traffic through search engines aren’t going away. It’s only getting harder to get a co-sign from reputable sites.
You’ll still need to spend heavily on marketing yourself and provide great content. But if you want to be published on HuffPost, you’ll work with an editor like the old days. And you’ll get paid.
But the bar was raised on what’s allowed to get in, and they’re not working with agencies the way they used to – Forbes either.
This is what’s allowing platforms like Substack, Medium, and Quora to flourish. Blogger and WordPress still have active communities with domain authority. I’m always on the lookout for free platforms to post content.
While it may sometimes be abused, marketing is necessary to build and sustain an audience. That means showing your face where the people are and making an impression.
Getting published in HuffPost was an accomplishment at one point in my career. So were High Times, Forbes, Paste Magazine, Fast Company, and others.
I’m glad to see the company clean up its image and wish both Buzzfeed and HuffPost well. They’ll still produce great journalism and explore competent freelance work.
The game changes every day, and I’ll pop up somewhere else. I miss HuffPost Live more than the HuffPost contributor platform. That was great until Facebook paid them to migrate. Haven’t paid attention since.
Media outlets (especially of the Internet kind) spend a LOT of time on social media. In fact, you would be surprised at how many interns (and paid journalists) spend their work day just “playing” on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Quora, and even Tinder.
Just like in any other sector, “going pro” on a site like HuffPost can be achieved in one of two ways:
1) Write extraordinary answers and find clever ways to invite someone who writes for HuffPost (there are literally thousands). This is the tactic you’ll see in movies when a talent scout heads to the farm leagues to “discover” new raw talent.
2) Send any answer you feel is spectacular directly to a HuffPost writer you think would enjoy it. This is equivalent to the record business tactic of being “discovered” by just constantly sending in your demo (or just breaking into someone’s car and putting your album in their radio like rapper Saigon did in the Entourage series).
Though you should know that being published in one of these places is basically 15 minutes of fame and it won’t make you a household name. To illustrate this, think of your own perspective – have you heard of any of those Quorans whose answers are featured in HuffPost? Have you ever even read an article on HuffPost that came from Quora?
On the Huffington Post side, Quora answers are clearly labeled as having come from Quora, and they farm content from sites like this in order to consistently keep a large volume of updated content on their site, therefore moving large volumes of traffic and bringing in large volumes of advertising money.
The tag “published in Huffington Post” is about as impressive as the tag “most viewed writer.” On Twitter, it’s the equivalent of having your tweet read on The Tonight Show or @Midnight by using their hashtags at the right time.
I have an entire page on Huffington Post of links to my content on the Huffington Post, and you’ve never heard of me: Brian Penny
More than anything, it’s luck of the draw. Even with 1000 people scouring every corner of social media they can think of, they’ll still not catch all the content. Hell, the NSA can’t even keep up with it all, so they archive everything and make it searchable instead.
You wouldn’t grab the attention of a law enforcement agency using the NSA’s databases unless you either happened to be talking about bombs an hour before a bomb coincidentally went off in your city or you were someone who actually builds bombs.
So, in short, if you want to be noticed by the Huffington Post and not the NSA, write insightful answers about anything nonviolent and promote yourself.