As iMediaEthics recently reported, the Newspaper Guild joined in with Visual Art Scene in calling for a boycott on writing for the Huffington Post for free.  We wrote to Visual Art Scene asking more about the strike and how the group linked up with the Newspaper Guild.

Visual Art Scene’s Bill Lasarow responded, noting  that Visual Art Scene hasn’t heard from Huffington Post. The art news publication “has been in contact with” the Newspaper Guild since the original strike notice, but the guild’s joining in “did not happen overnight.”

“I have been in direct contact with Lauri Lebo, a journalist herself and a TNG organizer, and Tim Schick, Administrative Director to the Vice President.  We worked directly with them in the crafting of their official statement,” Lasarow e-mailed iMediaEthics.

“Representing as they do about 26,000 member journalists TNG is equipped to pursue a much needed process to establish business and ethical standards within the industry, not merely at Huffington Post / AOL, and to provide remedies to professional writers and journalists suffering from unscrupulous and predatory business practices. I hope and expect TNG to meet a high standard of conduct in representing constituent interests, and I believe that they will.”

Lasarow also said that he did try to put the strike notice on the Huffington Post, but the story was removed from HuffPo and Visual Art Scene wasn’t notified.

He provided a link to his explanation of the strike on the Guardian’s site here.