Dan Abrams Stands With Fellow Internet Millionaire Against Unpaid Writers
In your gray Monday media column: Dan Abrams stands united with Arianna Huffington, Janet Robinson's hard times, Robin Roberts tweets, Disney wants (more of) your kids' money, Foster Kamer to the NYO, and a Sulzberger story.
- Blog mini-mogul Dan Abrams is speaking up in support of The Huffington Post against the hordes of unpaid bloggers who suddenly expect some money for their efforts. You fools! Just because the company sold for $315 million, you believe you deserve a penny? Dan Abrams finds your arguments less than compelling. Dan's concluding sentence: "In the meantime, don't hate the player, hate the game-the Internet, it has changed the rules for everyone, Huffington Post just figured out how to play it before everyone else." Unpaid writers: they're all laughing at you. Just start the boycott and see how it goes. You have literally nothing to lose.
- New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson made a mere $4.48 million last year, down 8% from the year before. We hope all the new online paywall money goes directly into Janet Robinson's pocket, first and foremost!
- Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts has finally joined the Twitter. Remember Robin Roberts? Yea, now you do.
- Disney is "trying to build a children's subscription magazine business in the United States," by rolling out several new magazines named after popular Disney properties. They kind of sound like comic books? I mean, what do you really put in a "Phineas and Ferb" magazine? Pornography? If it's not pornography, let's just call them comic books.
- Foster Kamer, former Gawker-Village Voice- (currently) Esquire guy, is going to join Elizabeth Spiers at the New York Observer. For two months, at which point he'll leave to take a job at the West Side Spirit! Haha. But seriously, we're keeping an eye on you people, over there.
- A reliable source tells us that at last Thursday's internal staff meeting about the NYT's new online pay wall, NYT publisher Arthur "Pinch" "The Moose" Sulzberger read approvingly from a Gawker post, and then, as a kicker, as a sort of punchline, added, "That's from Gawker," at which point everyone laughed. That's a compliment, right? I think it sounds like a compliment sort of.
[Photo: Getty]