Let's Talk This Out
So, yesterday, I wrote this. And, as some of you may or may not know, I used to work here. And knowing how these things work (because I used to work there) and knowing the platform HuffPost offers and knowing that because it’s my piece and because neither Air America Media nor HuffPost care whether or not I’d published it on their respective sites, I chose to re-publish the aforementioned piece, in its entirety, on HuffPost. Then I promptly went on with my day.
Until I got a Google alert directing me to ASSME.org - you’ve heard of them, you might be going to their fundraiser next week, and heck, like me, maybe you actually worked with one of its editors over here - to see that Drew Grant had written a post about my cross-published piece.
Her post reads:
So lets see: Air America’s website published this story about how you can actually learn stuff by watching how Lauren Conrad navigated her career on The Hills …and the Huffington Post thought that this was so inspirational that they did one of their patented copy-and-paste deals and took Verena von Pfetten’s entire article to reprint on their site.
I’m not sure why I’m coming to the defense of my previous employer who, most undoubtedly, does not need defending, and to be fair, Drew’s post seems to, in a somewhat condescending way, be coming to my defense, but here’s the thing: why was there no effort to get the facts straight?
Would it have been so difficult to email me to, I don’t know, just ask if HuffPost had stolen my content?
Because the answer - if anyone had actually cares - is, in fact, no.
That’s all.
