A Crack Opens in Huffpo's No-Pay Policy

Last fall, Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer confidently told USA Today that the links-and-rants site would never have to make room in its budget to pay its hundreds of bloggers. Or, rather, he said Huffpo already pays them -- in the coin of "visibility, promotion and distribution with a great company."

But that certitude was missing from an interview Huffpo CEO Betsy Morgan gave to her college alumni magazine recently. Asked, point blank, if the site has any plans to start paying, Morgan responded:

Not all of the plays have been written yet for this company. That said, we have a very good relationship with our bloggers; we're unbelievably respectful of them. By blogging, they get terrific exposure and our brand gives them a unique platform. We've had a positive two-way relationship with them. Could that include money at some point? Sure. But it feels very 1993 to say, 'Hey, it's all about the check that I get at the end of the month.'

(Yeah, remember how we only used to do stuff for money back in '93? That was weird.)

Elsewhere in the interview, Morgan, who was general manager of CBSNews.com before joining Huffpo last October, isn't shy about the significance of her move.

My jumping from traditional media to a pure-play, interactive, media-content publishing site was, in many ways, another validation of the medium. I'm certainly not the first to do that. I did hold a prominent job at CBSNews.com. And over the past few years, there have been a lot of senior executives making the leap to the Web, but generally within the same company. For me to make the leap to this completely new organization, one that had a new mindset and new sensibilities, sent an interesting message to the marketplace.

The internet thanks you, Ms. Morgan.