Leaving in a Huff
Snide Remarks #623
"Leaving in a Huff"
by Eric D. Snider
Published on April 11, 2011
One thing you may not know about me is that I am a writer. More specifically, I'm a freelance writer. This means I can have several clients at once, work from home in my underwear, and set my own hours. It is basically like being a prostitute, but with less stringent hygiene requirements.
Up until last week, one of the places I wrote for was Cinematical, a fine website devoted to news and commentary related to the film world. But now Cinematical has essentially been run into the ground by its corporate overlords. The writers were let go on Wednesday. The editors had already quit. What happened to this once-thriving movie blog? Gather 'round and pay heed and I will tell the tale!
The background
Cinematical's parent company, AOL, recently purchased the Huffington Post blog empire from its owner, suspicious foreign person Arianna Huffington. They paid $315 million, which AOL had lying around from all the old people who still pay for AOL dial-up access even though they have cable Internet. Thrilled by her windfall, Arianna Huffington immediately used the money to buy a closetful of pantsuits made from the skins of poor people.
At first glance, AOL buying HuffPo might look like a good thing. Huffington is well-known for not paying her writers, who contribute work for free because it gives them a platform from which to make their voices heard. Perhaps AOL, as the new owner, would make HuffPo start paying its writers. Say what you will about AOL, but when you perform work for them, they pay you. They're old-fashioned like that.
But this is not what happened. As it turns out, not paying people is what had attracted AOL to Huffington in the first place. "Tell us more about this 'not paying people' system," AOL said, intrigued. AOL liked the cut of Arianna Huffington's jib, if you'll pardon the unpleasant imagery. They put her in charge of all the properties AOL already had -- Cinematical, Moviefone, Engadget, TechCrunch, PopEater, TV Squad, and a bunch of other blogs.
I did mention Moviefone in that list. This will be important later, so I'd better explain it. Moviefone is a site that is very popular for its ability to tell you what time a movie starts once you tell it your zip code. In fact, within the field of telling you what time a movie starts after it knows your zip code, Moviefone is virtually unrivaled. (Except for Fandango.) But you may not realize that Moviefone also produces content, in the form of celebrity profiles and movie previews and such -- sort of a fluffier, glossier, shallower version of a news-and-reviews site like Cinematical. AOL has owned Moviefone since 1999, and Cinematical since 2005, but it wasn't until 2010 that AOL slapped itself in the forehead and said, "Why the dickens do we own TWO movie websites?!" So they kind of -- but not really -- merged the two sites together, under Moviefone's direction. Cinematical was still called Cinematical, but it was repositioned as Moviefone's blog rather than its own site, and if you typed www.cinematical.com into your browser, it would take you to blog.moviefone.com. Cinematical continued to operate more or less as it had before, but now with an additional layer of bureaucracy and interference, and with readers being confused as to why we weren't telling them what time the movies started.
I should stress that whatever problems we had, none of them were Moviefone's fault. They were nice folks. They were tossed into an awkward situation just like we were. It was like Moviefone and Cinematical were stepsisters who'd been living in different wings of AOL's house for years, until suddenly AOL made Cinematical move into Moviefone's bedroom. And Moviefone, being older and more widely trafficked (I've lost the stepsisters analogy here), was put in charge. Where Cinematical used to be able to put up a poster on any wall it wanted to, now it had to check with Moviefone first, and Moviefone might say, "Well, I was gonna put something else there," and there'd be some negotiating, and soon it got to where it was easier for Cinematical to just put up fewer posters.
The fiasco
So this is how things stood when, in early February, AOL bought Arianna Huffington. (Let's make this easier and say they actually bought her.) Her blogs and AOL's blogs were smushed together into a new thing called Huffington Post Media Group. The transition was going to be arduous and complicated. This was particularly true for the people who write AOL's press releases, who had to work overtime issuing statements with business terms like "restructuring" (which means firing people), "streamlining" (which also means firing people), "re-branding" (which means making people forget all the negative associations they have with AOL and Arianna Huffington), and "synergy" (which doesn't mean anything). In March, 200 of AOL's full-time employees were laid off in the United States, plus another 400 in India. In other news, apparently AOL used to have 400 employees in India.
Next on the chopping block were all the freelance writers and editors who worked at the blogs -- which was basically everyone. Huffington will no longer need these freelancers because she's in the process of hiring full-time staffers to produce the content. Rather than pay independent contractors by the piece, it's more cost-effective to have the work done in-house. That's how newspapers operate, and goodness knows that industry is running smoothly.
What was to become of us freelancers? And when? For several weeks, AOL lived up to its reputation within the communications field by doing a terrific job of making it seem like they were communicating with us without actually conveying any information. Our only liaison with AOL was Moviefone's editor-in-chief, and AOL wasn't telling her much, either. We got occasional e-mails reassuring us that everything was going to be fine, that it was business as usual, that we should just keep on doin' our thing. We were like stewardesses handing out peanuts on the Hindenburg.
Unhappy with the way things were heading, two of Cinematical's editors, Scott Weinberg and Peter Hall, resigned. Then, on April 4, Erik Davis -- the site's top editor, the captain of the team -- also quit. AOL had offered him a full-time position under the new structure, but he wouldn't take it. He didn't want to see all his writers get fired while he got a promotion. Plus, he's a movie guy. He knows that when space aliens invade, and a weaselly human swears allegiance to them in exchange for not being killed, the weaselly human always winds up getting killed anyway. Erik Davis is no dummy.
The next day, we all got an e-mail from Moviefone's editor-in-chief. It began:
Dear Moviefone/Cinematical Writers,
I know there's been a lot of uncertainty regarding the future of freelancers and your status as a writer for the site. I personally apologize for the lack of communication, but I'll tell you what I can.
We will, indeed, be moving away from a freelancer model and toward one relying on full-time staffers. Sometime soon -- this week, I believe -- many of you will be receiving an email informing you that your services as a freelancer will no longer be required. You will be invited to contribute as part of our non-paid blogger system; and though I know that for many of you this will not be an option financially, I strongly encourage you to consider it if you'd like to keep writing for us, because we value all of your voices and input.
The ways in which this is hilarious and outrageous need hardly be enumerated. Several of us tendered our resignations immediately, to spare them the trouble of firing us. Nobody was going to take them up on their offer to contribute to the "non-paid blogger system." We were rather insulted, actually, at least to the extent that it is possible to insult someone whose job requires him to write about Shia LaBeouf. "Non-paid blogger system"? Please. We may be whores, but we are not sluts.
The substance of the e-mail was immediately all over Twitter, followed soon by the text of the e-mail itself. Within hours, several prominent websites had gleefully mocked AOL for its ham-fisted efforts. This was a story for the Digital Age: a story about the Internet, unfolding on Internet, dealing with a company best known for being an outmoded provider of access to the Internet.
As far as I know, I was the first person to publicize the text of the e-mail. I posted a screenshot of it on Twitter, cropping out the name of the editor who'd written it because I didn't want people unfamiliar with the organization to think she was the one to blame. She wasn't, of course; none of these decisions had been hers to make. She was just passing along the information. In other words, she was just doing her job --
-- a job which, 24 hours later, she no longer had, because AOL got embarrassed by the Internet backlash and fired her.
You've heard of "shooting the messenger"? AOL shot the messenger who delivered its own message. You've got fail.
Oh, but it wasn't enough to fire her. AOL had to pull a "Mission: Impossible" and disavow all knowledge of what she'd said, and publicly shame her for saying it. My friend Kim Voynar has reliable sources who say that when this poor woman left the meeting in which her employment had been terminated, she saw her coworkers already reading about it on the Internet. AOL had leaked it to a writer for the Wall Street Journal, a publication that has never met a corporation whose B.S. it wouldn't swallow, a publication that the very next day would run a fluffy piece about the awesome things Arianna Huffington was doing at AOL.
(Did you know that when she had her first meetings with the AOL staff, she brought them Greek cookies and regaled them with amusing personal anecdotes?? It's true! Then she taught them traditional Greek folk songs! Then they all danced a tsamiko, drank ouzo, and ate gyros and baklava! Then Huffington emitted a bone-chilling shriek, unhinged her jaw, threw over the conference room table, and devoured everyone present.)
The AOL/Huffington people issued this statement:
The Huffington Post Media Group has provided freelancers with as much clarity as possible about our intention to build a great team of full-time editors, writers, and reporters, and we regret that [the] email misrepresents these efforts. In fact, we have been very forthcoming and transparent in our communication with freelancers through multiple calls and emails [note: that is not true] and have encouraged freelancers to apply for full-time positions. But we never asked freelancers to become unpaid bloggers -- that is not how our group blog works. Our bloggers, many of whom are not professional writers, post on the HuffPost platform to expose their views to a wide audience, and to raise their profiles.
Now, that statement might be a little confusing. It might sound like they're saying that the Huffington Post, which has built its brand by getting people to write for free, would never try to get people to write for free. But that's not what the statement is saying. All those people who write for free at the Huffington Post? Those are not professional writers. Those are people who just want a platform for their voices. The Huffington Post Media Group would never try to get actual professional writers to write for free. Heaven forfend! Why, they wouldn't be professional writers anymore then, would they? Not if they weren't getting paid! They'd be ... I don't know ... unpaid bloggers. And the Huffington Post Media Group does NOT want professional writers to become unpaid bloggers, no matter what that e-mail said. Well, I mean, unless they want to, of course. If they're cool with not getting paid, hey, why not?
As I mentioned, the plan is to have the bulk of the Huffington Post Media Group's content produced by a full-time staff of writers and editors. They'll be working out of actual offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Dulles, Va. -- again, like a newspaper, which is obviously a brilliant strategy that all businesses would do well to emulate. But those full-timers won't be able to cover things like conventions, conferences, and film festivals in the extensive way that AOL's blogs, including Cinematical, have done in the past. For on-the-ground coverage of those events, Huffington is going to need some freelancers. And when that time comes -- well, AOL obviously didn't buy Arianna Huffington so that she could NOT use her Greek cookies and black magic to amass an army of unpaid bloggers when the need arises.
A brief interlude
The publication of the e-mail led directly to that editor being fired. I was the one who first published the e-mail. Don't think that has escaped my notice. If I'd thought that AOL would fire her for telling us what they had presumably told her to tell us, I wouldn't have posted it, period. But there was no indication that this was secret stuff, nothing to suggest that the person who conveyed the message would get in trouble for conveying it. My intention was to expose what AOL and Huffington were doing -- I had no idea they were capable of the kind of cowardice and sheer bastardry that would lead them to scapegoat a dedicated, honest employee who was just doing her job. I was heartbroken to know I'd unwittingly been party to it. I've defended her in other forums. So have many others. I've communicated with her privately to apologize for my role in it, but I wanted to go on the record here, too: I am sorry.
The dumb aftermath
That e-mail had gone out on April 5. The next morning, while plans were being laid to railroad the editor who sent it, most of AOL's freelance writers got an e-mail officially terminating their contracts:
Hi there –Thank you very much for your contributions to AOL. As we have discussed on calls and in emails, going forward our editorial direction is to build a great team of full-time editors, writers, and reporters. To that end, we are reducing the scope of AOL's freelancer program.
Per the terms of your agreement with AOL, this note confirms the end of your engagement for content services effective Wednesday, April 6, 2011. Rest assured, you will be paid for your content and services through this date, disbursed to you per AOL’s regular payment schedule in late May.
We greatly appreciate your contributions [clearly!] and are available to answer any questions you may have. Please email freelancers@teamaol.com with any inquiries.
(You will note that, as with most professional communiques regarding the termination of a subcontractor's services, this one begins with the traditional "Hi there.")
This was Wednesday, April 6. It is marked as the date on which, for all intents and purposes, Cinematical died. Several writers had quit the day before, and now the rest of them were officially let go.
But wait! If AOL intends to keep Cinematical and all the other blogs operational, and if Arianna Huffington has not yet gathered her full-time staff into her gooey tentacles, how are they going to stay online until she does?
The answer to this question arrived on April 7, when several former Cinematical writers, myself included, received a very curious e-mail from another AOL employee. It was copied to about 25 people. The subject line was Moviefone "next steps", and that was only the beginning of the specialized used of quotation marks:
Hi everyone. A few quick points --
1.) [Five names] and I will help guide Moviefone going forward. If you have questions, please feel free to ask us.
2.) If you have dedicated columns that you "own," please continue to write them. If you usually "pitch" work to the eds, please continue to pitch those ideas to [five names], and me. In short: it's "business as usual."3.) We are currently looking for the following stories to be written. If you're interested, please let us know --
* "New 'Arthur' vs Old 'Arthur'"
* "25th Anniversary of the Bad News Bears"
If you have questions, please let me know, and I will do my best to answer them. Thanks.
My "assumption" was that this had been sent from a parallel universe, one in which the entire writing staff had not been fired the day before. Yet this could not be so, for the e-mail seemed to acknowledge that there had been a disruption of some kind. Besides, it seemed unlikely that an e-mail message would reach me from a parallel universe, given that our universe and the parallel one would surely have different servers. So I replied:
I have to assume that the other Cinematical writers and I who got this e-mail were included by mistake, right? Yesterday we all got e-mails telling us our contracts were over, no more writing for AOL/Moviefone/Cinematical, etc. What's going on?
There came this response:
Eric, you are not on my "remove" list. You are on my "keep" list. Did you get a termination notice for Moviefone this week?
Well, as a matter of fact, I hadn't gotten the termination notice. I had assumed this was because I already resigned the day before, after that "we might ask you to write for free" e-mail. But it turns out the person who knew I had resigned, who knew that several others had resigned as well, was fired before she could pass that information up the pipeline.
So several of us had not been fired, and our resignations not recorded. For a company that wanted to get rid of everyone, AOL was making it difficult to leave. They wanted to keep us on as a skeleton crew, I guess, to keep Cinematical afloat until Huffington's full-timers take over. It's the old "I like you, I'll kill you last" routine. I don't know if we should be flattered that they still wanted us to work for them, or insulted that they thought we'd want to.
At any rate, while I was responding to the e-mail and tendering my resignation from AOL for the second time in 48 hours, something hilarious was going on. Several of the people who'd been copied on the e-mail were, in fact, still writing for Moviefone, and were continuing with "business as usual," as instructed. And instead of replying to the person who'd sent the e-mail, they were doing "reply all." Soon my fellow ex-Cinematical writers and I were caught up in this scintillating conversation:
Point of clarification: It's the 35th anniversary of Bad News Bears. Also, I've written up a "Where Are They Now" as part of my "This Week in Movies" column going up later today. Someone should really investigate this proposed original-cast reunion movie, though. I have some links for whoever has time to do this.
Thanks for the clarification, [name]. Is anyone interested?
Hi [editor], I could do the Bad News Bears piece, unless you need it tomorrow.
And is [name of fired and publicly humiliated editor] still on board?
No, [she] is no longer with AOL.
I'm fairly certain that a substantial number of the people on this mailing list are no longer with AOL.
I can't tell as all the mails to teamaol or corp.aol are bouncing back for me!
Is that happening to anyone else?
Yeah, I'm confused.
BY THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRES OF HADES, MAKE IT STOP! I wouldn't have needed to be part of this discussion even if I still wrote for Cinematical. It was even less relevant to me now that I didn't.
To my everlasting delight, one of my fellow ex-Cinematical writers then laid the smack down in this manner:
I’ve watched my fellow team members get unceremoniously dumped, a respected colleague and editor fired, and have no interest in watching AOL’s continued chaos and lazily scant information. I resigned two days ago, as did many people on this list.
Please stop replying to all.
I SAID GOOD DAY SIR!
Epilogue
Not that you were going to, but don't worry about me. I have my eggs in a few other baskets, notably Film.com, whose basket is large and accommodating and not currently in danger of being restructured by Greek pirates. Financially speaking, the death of Cinematical won't be a huge blow to me.
But it's a big loss in other ways, for me and for the online film community. Cinematical was a quality site. They ran a wide variety of features covering every aspect of the movies, all produced by a couple dozen enthusiastic writers with distinct voices. Even if Huffington keeps it going with full-time staffers, it's highly unlikely it's going to have anything close to that level of passion and zeal. Part of what made the job rewarding is that it was more than just a job. It was something we genuinely enjoyed. We love writing about movies so much that if we didn't have bills to pay, then yes: we'd do it for free.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 83 comments
April 11, 2011 at 7:49 am
Eric,
I saw your tweets indicating that things were getting weird and I was wondering how it was going to pan out. I'm sorry that it sucks so bad. I'm glad to hear that you have other baskets to work with. Maybe one day HuffPost will realize that going from a free model to an obsolete model wasn't such a good idea after all.
Ideally, they'll realize this just as they all get fired after they've been acquired by the Oprah Winfrey Network.
April 11, 2011 at 8:03 am
Fascinating and sad episode. Pleased to have your "on the ground" coverage, and vicarious thrill of reading snark directed at your ex-overlords.
April 11, 2011 at 8:07 am
Very sorry to hear about all this mess :/.
Loved the article though...and not just because I enjoyed watching you rip into Huffington and AOL.
April 11, 2011 at 8:51 am
Eric,
A beautifully written account. I've watched all this unfold with great sadness. Cinematical was a movie blog like no other, and its demise is a loss for everyone who enjoys passionate, quality film writing.
On the plus side, Cinematical introduced many of us to some outstanding writers. I, for one, will follow them wherever they go from here. And if, by chance, I ever meet Arianna Huffington in person, I vow to see how far I can shove a gyro up her rear end.
April 11, 2011 at 8:56 am
I loved the line, "We may be whores, but we are not sluts." In case we were wondering, glad you had cleared that up.
Keep whoring on good man!!!
April 11, 2011 at 9:08 am
Wow. That sucks in many ways. Condolences to you and to the rest of the Cinematical staff that were totally screwed.
HuffPo and AOL were already on my "ick list", but now they are higher on it. Not that I have any influence whatsoever.... But when I take over the world, rest assured they will suffer my wrath!
April 11, 2011 at 9:37 am
Could you add to your site a real-time count-down of AOL's original $315 million investment diving down and beyond $0?
April 11, 2011 at 10:19 am
AOL making it difficult to leave? Say it ain't so!
April 11, 2011 at 10:36 am
who new there was so much drama in the paid blogging industry. also, I've heard Arianna Huffington eats babies. Is this true?
April 11, 2011 at 10:56 am
I watched this unfold via your Twitter feed. Very sorry to see that happen. One of my freelance editing jobs died a similar death, though the owner of that company had the decency to not ask anyone to work for free. The owner did, however, throw all of us under the bus for writing SEO based content per his original business model. Love how he made millions gaming Google then blamed his writers for doing so.
April 11, 2011 at 10:56 am
"In other news, apparently AOL used to have 400 employees in India."
Yeah, they were hired not long after AOL eliminated another "remote" division, one my mother was a manager in, two weeks before Christmas in the mid 90s.
April 11, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Proof example #3,284 that Ariana "money-grubbing 'socialist'" Huffington is the Anti-Christ...
April 11, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Wait! AOL is still around? WTF? :)
April 11, 2011 at 12:49 pm
I'm ashamed to admit it, but I have AOL as my internet provider. This latest bit of news should now encourage me to get off my lazy arse and finally make an effort to change that.
...
After a short nap.
April 11, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Good to see that AOL treats its employees with the same dignity and respect it provides for its customers. (Yeah, my mom has one of those "on the phone for hours trying to cancel AOL" stories...)
April 11, 2011 at 2:13 pm
epic shoot the messanger strategy. People never cease to amaze me...and by amaze I mean frighten.
April 11, 2011 at 2:14 pm
As somebody who was just laid off (voluntarily, just to get the hell of here while I can) from a company going through it's own fantastic "restructuring," I found this article immensely entertaining. Sorry you all had to go through this, but as one who's been going through this kind of crap for the last year, I know full well the only response to this kind of corporate idiocy is laughter. Which you have provided.
It's like living in your very own Dilbert panel, every single day.
April 11, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Great SR, Eric. Rarely have I laughed so hard at such a fundamentally unfunny situation. Would that all "whores" were such talented writers...and kudos on your integrity for not selling out to the devil just for a few more months on the doomed AOL ship.
The lasting humor arises from the utter IRONY that an uber-progressive like Huff, who built her whole empire preaching economic equality and far-left bleeding-heart concern for the poor workers of the world, should so publicly and blatently betray the very vunerable "little people" she supposedly champions. Yeesh.
April 11, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Thanks so much for eloquently summarizing the complex situation so well. I will miss Cinematical as it was and no longer is. Cheers.
April 11, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Wow. Just, no, never mind. Just wow.
April 11, 2011 at 3:30 pm
I just posted a link to this column from the Trekbbs Misc Forum. I thought I would do my part to help spread the word about the crap AOL has pulled.
April 11, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Glad to hear that you're not going to be financially destitute as a result of all this. As for the story itself, this is how I want all news articles to be written from now on: in-depth, uncompromising, and hilarious!
April 11, 2011 at 3:59 pm
What a great column! I wasn't quite up to speed on the Cinematical situation, but this was a very informative and entertaining postmortem that cleared up a lot of questions I had. Hopefully this ordeal has freed you up to seize some great opportunities elsewhere.
April 11, 2011 at 4:08 pm
"You've got fail."
Hilarious.
I don't mind freelancing for free. My landlord accepts hugs as payment and my car runs on imagination.
April 11, 2011 at 4:40 pm
I'll delete my Cinematical bookmark and make one for Film.com then. :)
April 11, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Just simply freakin epic.
April 11, 2011 at 6:51 pm
When I was reading about all the crap going down with HuffPo and AOL, I was wondering what would happen with you/Eric. It's good to know that our favorite movie writer has his own website and a steady gig writing these columns (that we, your fans, will never fire you from). I know that AOL was trying to stop the bad publicity, but it just makes them look worse. I'd stop paying for my AOL e-mail address, but I don't pay them money. Now I just have to figure out how to stop giving them page hits. Does it count if I just go to their webmail server?
April 11, 2011 at 7:07 pm
Well I just deleted my Cinematical bookmark. I'll probably have to delete a bunch of others too.
April 11, 2011 at 8:26 pm
AS HULK MOURN THE DEATH OF CINEMATICAL, HULK CELEBRATE YOUR EFFECTIVE WRITE UP ON THE GREAT NONSENSICAL B.S. OF THE HUFFINGTON/AOL EMPIRE. WELL DONE SIR.
HULK WISH YOU NOTHING BUT BEST GOING FORWARD.
April 12, 2011 at 4:42 am
I love it when you write about ISSUES. This was a great column even though I have no first-hand interest in any of the above. Well done.
April 12, 2011 at 7:28 am
Fantastic read, Eric. Indeed, we are not sluts.
April 12, 2011 at 8:15 am
@9 - Ryan, I don't believe I've ever heard her deny the accusation. Of course, she's never denied that she was complicit in rape and murder of a young girl that Glenn Beck refuses to deny.
Just some food for thought.
April 12, 2011 at 12:44 pm
I am so glad you wrote the brilliant post that will spare me the opportunity to write one very much like it, but from the finance blogging perspective. and yours has the added touch of infuriating hypocrisy of [poor editor who was publicly humiliated]. I really wish it hadn't happened.
Meanwhile, over at Walletpop/DailyFinance, I was told with a straight face (via email) by the powers-that-be that news of Aol firing all its freelancers was "false" the day before they fired... most of the freelancers...
and today, they fired a bunch more. hi there!
April 12, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Apparently one of Huffington Post's freelancers--ahem, I mean unpaid bloggers--is filing a class-action lawsuit against just about everyone in sight: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/freelancer-to-file-class-action-suit-against-huffpost-and-aol-over-compensation/2011/04/12/AFa9QGQD_story.html
Glad you got out before the ship really started to sink, Eric.
April 12, 2011 at 7:01 pm
I felt like I was (mostly) looking in a mirror while reading your words. I've had an almost identical experience as a freelance writer for AOL Travel. What a mess this has been. Best of luck to you, Eric.
April 12, 2011 at 7:07 pm
I was an avid Cinematical reader and this weekend I noticed something was very wrong, and people were leaving comments about the resignations and firings. I deleted the Cinematical bookmark because the quality I enjoyed was plainly absent and clearly not coming back. After reading what had happened I'm glad I did.
April 12, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Eric - I read through your expose and I am very disheartened and sad to hear what has happened with Cinematical. Rather than express my anger over what went down, I just wanted to thank you and your staff for the hard work, interesting perspectives, quality writing and snarky comedy that I came back for day after day after day for over 4 years. You were one of the 6 sites I visited every day, curing my endless boredom and insatiable appetite for movie news, trivia and reviews. Thank you again, and I hope everything goes well for you in the future. I'll be following up with your career.
My wish? I wish you and all the ex-patriots would get together and start your own blog. I know its' a pipe dream but one can wish :)
April 13, 2011 at 12:42 am
This explains so much. Normally I check SlashFilm and Cinematical about 3 times a day. And for the last few days, Cinematical wasn't doing anything, which was very very odd. I chalked it up to the weekend, but it persisted.
Sad story, but told very well. Thank you Eric. I will miss the old Cinematical.
April 13, 2011 at 8:16 am
"Tell us more about this 'not paying people' system" LOL. Great piece. Sorry to hear about Cinematical I will miss it as well!
April 13, 2011 at 8:42 am
Xenophobic much?
Stopped reading after the 2nd or 3rd time you've mentioned her origins. Why is that important? Would you feel better being ripped of by a "real American"? Aren't you all being ripped off by your own every day e.g where's your universal health care ? Why are your prisons for profit enterprises - and full of people the system exploits ? Why so many of you are obese .... you've created an exploitive and unfair system, some play it as well as you, Greek or not.
April 13, 2011 at 9:12 am
How unprofessional. Hopefully whatever level of embarrassment you caused to [editor] can be amplified and redirected at AOL.
April 13, 2011 at 9:55 am
Sorry to hear that all this crap happened. I enjoyed your writing on Cinematical, and wish you the best in your future endeavors. Cinematical will truly be missed.
April 13, 2011 at 10:23 am
I love how you compared their plans to the outmoded newspaper industry. Here's my prediction: Within 6 months Cinematical will be a subscription-based website. Then, it will get government bailout because it's too big to fail.
Film.com here I come!
April 13, 2011 at 11:16 am
This is funny - some of the best stuff. No wonder I never really liked huffpo its not really real to begin with. No wonder it always seems like a strange low quality granola zine from the 1980's it is one.. wow. Its like oh yeah they actually dont know what they are talking about... meh..
April 13, 2011 at 11:38 am
Thanks for the information. Cinematical used to be my favorite movie blog and it was the one I was most active on. When Moviefone and Cinematical 'merged' I still visited it a lot, but now... It's a pale shadow of it's former self. As of now, the last post is almost 24 hours old. AOL and Huffington suck. Film.com here I come.
April 13, 2011 at 11:47 am
I've assiduously avoided huffington post for the last several years.
Since the cd onslaught, I've never considered aol viable in any sense.
This is a match made in heaven.
April 13, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Dear Eric and former Cinematical crew. Thanks for all the great articles through these past few years. I visited your blog every day. Sad to see it go. I hope to read more from you guys in the future, wherever your work might turn up.
I too have deleted my Cinematical bookmark and rss feed, by the way.
Keep up the good work!
April 13, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Thank you for this very funny account of a very sad corporate story; it seems AOL is run by the people who put up the opening credits of Monthy Pyton and the Holy Grail (it's unwise to fire the firers at the same time as the firees):
A Møøse once bit my sister ...
We apologise for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have been sacked.
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...
We apologise again for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
Møøse trained by TUTTE HERMSGERVORDENBROTBORDA
(...)
The directors of the firm hired to continue the credits after the other people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been sacked.
The credits have been completed in an entirely different style at great expense and at the last minute.
(etc.)
April 13, 2011 at 1:21 pm
You guys should think of following the Engadget folks's model: get together and restart cinematical somewhere else.
April 13, 2011 at 1:23 pm
That was the funniest article I've read all year! You, sir, are a damn good writer.
April 13, 2011 at 2:12 pm
"AOL making it difficult to leave? Say it ain't so!"
Eric the half-bee wins the thread. All the rest of us can now go home.
April 13, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Thanks so much for this post and all you've detailed here...it helps also explain what's going on with the other blogs like Engadget. Truly sad that they're mistreating everyone as they have and that good blogs like Cinematical are getting killed because of it.
Looking forward to getting up to speed on Film.com though! Keep doing what you do!
April 13, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Eric, if you are supposed to be compensated for your writing, why do you call yourself a "freelancer?" Wouldn't "paidlancer" be more appropriate? Something to think about before you order new business cards...
April 13, 2011 at 2:59 pm
I am sad that there will be no more reviews of the new movie trailers of the week. Those were very entertaining.
April 13, 2011 at 4:25 pm
I love how AOL claims that "we value all of your voices and input" right after saying, essentially, that they just don't value it enough to actually pay for it.
April 13, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Very sad news about Cinematical US. I used to run the European versions of Cinematical and Engadget until those got canned by AOL in early 2010. I used to love working for the company but reading all this just makes me so sad. I know editorial isn't cheap and doesn't always deliver enough return according to management but this is just so wrong.
April 14, 2011 at 12:19 am
For years I read and enjoyed Cinematical, it was on point, smart and very entertaining. I learned much about older movies without feeling like I was listening to a slow James Lipton and geeked out properly when it came to the lighter side of the art of film. It's hard to believe that a shameful company that produced such a disastrous merger with TimeWarner might still be allowed to do business in the old fashioned red tape cutting way, simply devaluing the work of good writers and treating you like a child. Eric, thanks for your many great posts, I will add your site to my favorites and kill Cinematical, you are not on my "remove" list, you are on my "keep" list...;)
Best
Mr.R
April 14, 2011 at 10:25 am
Well, that explains why cinematical hasn't changed its headline story sine April 12.
I have to say, I absolutely adored this site, along with Moviehole I would get a good days fill of information, updates reviews..what have you.
Sometimes you tend to take things for granted & Cinematical is ine of those times.
My daily routine of drinking coffee, booting my PC & going directly to cinematical now is no longer possible.
I wish all of you the very best & hope AOL finally meets its long overdue demise.
April 14, 2011 at 11:59 am
Since the managing editor, site editors and writers all quit, is there a possibility of starting a new website (cinemania.com?) to fill the hole created by the effective demise of cinematical?
April 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm
ANYONE who contributed ANYTHING to the HuffPo site should stand to benefit from the FULL value of the final product, valued at 315 million dollars. Let's be clear about what the product is that we are talking about here:
The site grew in value due to the exponential reinforcement of the multiple links, comments, attention, excitement, "networking", sense of community and other contributions by various visitors. Each person who left a comment had a blog page and was recognized for their contributions as a "networker", "superuser" or even a "moderator"! Who is to say that even the most minor snarky comment is worth less than an extremely accurate and well-written article or blog post in terms of increasing the overall value? All visitors who "documented" their visit with a comment contributed to the "hot air" that served to blow up the exponentially expanding HuffPo balloon; a balloon that was attractive enough to bring buyers and big bucks.
One could even make the argument that those bloggers, editors and tech people who were paid would not have standing against the final expansive product as they were paid for specific, well-defined, contributions; they build the sturdy table on which the balloon rests. Taking things further, Ms. Huffington could be held liable for destroying the product, the community, by selling it and keeping all the money for herself, essentially, "popping the balloon".
April 14, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Never even heard of cinematical before (my bad), but if your writing for the site was half as entertaining as this post, somebody screwed up.
April 14, 2011 at 7:55 pm
I have my eggs in a few other baskets, notably Film.com, whose basket is large and accommodating and not currently in danger of being restructured by Greek pirates.
Except Film.com did itself cull a bunch of freelancers, including yours truly, recently. I'm glad you survived. But Film.com is not so large and accommodating as it was just a few weeks ago.
April 14, 2011 at 10:28 pm
This is one of the best written articles I've read online, ever... Which makes it just that much sadder that I'd never even heard of Cinematical until now. :/ Sorry for your loss, and Mark M is right on the money - if half the "official" Cinematical posts read like this one, it's a big loss indeed!
April 15, 2011 at 9:33 am
Great post. Thanks for the clarity. Proves the point I've been trying to make that there is little difference between management supposedly at the top of its game and the vast pool of fools, thieves, and charlatans who manage companies on the edge of oblivion. Public hand wringing over 'hard' decisions always means someone in the upper echelons of the organization chart made a decision for which someone lower on the food chain is going to pay the price.
April 15, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Hey Eric,
Good post. Funny and sad all at once. You guys should consider starting a new site and draw your old readers to it. I'm signing up at film.com in support and if you do launch a new site, do let me know.
I also noticed your copyright. Good idea!
April 15, 2011 at 7:05 pm
The last few years have been a really depressing time to be a freelance writer, or professional writer in general. I love this piece. It's brilliantly written and in many ways a snapshot of what it's like for all of us right now, across different types of content and different companies. Thanks ... though I'm sorry you had to go through it.
April 15, 2011 at 7:28 pm
I'm just mad I missed the 25th anniversary of Bad News Bears.
April 15, 2011 at 7:30 pm
By the way, Arianna Huffington IS an Anti-Christ. Not THE Anti-Christ, but close ...
April 16, 2011 at 11:00 am
Hi,
shocking development, and I agree this was handled outrageously and in a very unprofessional manner. But I'm sure you could have used better fodder against Ms. Huffington than a racist slur against greeks?
April 16, 2011 at 5:04 pm
#69: "racist slur against greeks"
[citation needed]
April 17, 2011 at 6:00 am
Great read, this. Thanks for giving us such a comprehensive look at what really went down.
Cinematical has been one of the staples of my online experience for the last three or four years. I found it always was amongst the first to be on top of movie news, it had great in-depth feature writing and (before the moviefone renovation last year) had a simple but elegant interface. It had the seriousness that I wanted in a film site without the quirkiness/geekiness that plagues other sites.
Such a shame to see it go.
April 17, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Damn. That sucks. Guess I'll stop reading Cinematical.
Maybe in a month or so you can post links for the new work by the fulltime freelancers- let them have the readers they've earned.
April 19, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Just got around to reading this -- I'm slow -- and found it both hilarious and thoughtful. (I'll also add, cathartic). I was one of the Moviefone/Cinematical writers on the "remove" list (ouch) and while I too have eggs in non-AOL baskets, the whole prolonged AOL/HP transmogrification was unsettling, to say the least. The most shameful part was the tarring/feathering of Moviefone's EIC. But she's in a better place now.
Definitely the best piece I've read on the debacle, thanks!!
April 19, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Appreciate the update Eric. I visited Cinematical because of the WRITERS. They could call it "Happy Scrappy Hero Pup" for all I care, as long as it had the writers whose opinions I have grown to trust and whose articles I have really enjoyed. So they will bring in an entirely new creative staff, and yet keep the name the same. But the new Cinematical/Moviefone will just be "Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows" at best and "Troll 2" at worst.
April 21, 2011 at 3:37 pm
I was wondering what happened to all the new posts on my cinematical rss feed, thanks for the explanaition. I tried to stick with the site after AOL gobbled you up, I hope to find your work out there in the future.
April 21, 2011 at 5:24 pm
It makes me sad to know that some people don't have the balls to issue a big "**** you" to employers like this. Why people continued "business as usual" is beyond me. Grow a pair, bloggers.
April 23, 2011 at 8:26 pm
As you brag that you were the first to Tweet the manager's email, as if it was some feat of incredible digital journalism, you apologize because she got fired? You're an idiot, in my opinion. Your grammar stinks, too. Thank God you are not still writing.
How could you not think that posting that email would get her in trouble? She was trying to be upfront as possible with her freelancers and when I read the email it was pretty obvious to me that it was sent in confidence that it wouldn't be plastered on the web by whiny little babies. I am so sick of hearing the sob stories of these "free"lancers who worked with AOL.
If freelancing allows you to work for multiple companies from your home while in your underwear, then why does the way AOL dismissed you matter? Move on.
If AOL showed no class in this, what can you say for yourself? Cockroach comes to mind.
April 25, 2011 at 3:06 pm
A few points, Dan N:
1. He wasn't bragging.
2. There was no reason to fire the manager, as she did nothing wrong.
3. Eric's grammar is fine.
4. He IS still writing.
5. Why are you siding against people who are only guilty of getting laid off for no reason? They were treated unfairly, and have a right to complain.
April 29, 2011 at 10:54 am
Aw that's a really sad story.
Very good writeup though, I was fascinated by the train wreck from start to finish.
April 29, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Eric,
Really missing Cinematical.
Half an hour each night of mine were dedicated to two parallel tabs (leading to more of course) - one at slashfilm and another at Cinematical. And I'd been wondering why the latter had had no updates for last few days... Well now I know! And it is sad...
But yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned Film.com! Am giving it a try right away.
May 24, 2011 at 8:40 am
Eric,
Thanks for the candid - and very funny - account of Cinematical's demise [read: murder] that should be required reading for Human Resource managers and other executives. (That was a little joke. OF COURSE I know they're too busy playing with that new printer they ordered from officedepot.com - which took a morning to figure out how to do - but we can pretend that it might happen.) For the record, I'm not worried about you because you're a terrific writer and you'll do just fine. Yes, I really AM that optimistically naive about the relationship between talent and success. Either way, good luck, and I'm glad I found your website while looking for background on what had happened to my favourite film news site. Take care.
Morey
August 21, 2011 at 4:08 pm
HOW did I EVER miss the Google link to this wonderful article, written months ago now, in my occasional searches re: my AOL experience? I just forwarded it to my husband/wife journalist friends, one of whom is a tech reporter for a regional print newspaper, and the other a new local reporter for "Patch". If they haven't already seen this, they may see some of their future in it.
Lately, I have been e-mailing AOL almost daily, criticizing their new "welcome screen", and protesting their still unannounced and unexplained failure to support their "MyAOL" (the only good) feature, with its customizable linked pages to NYT and other major national news and magazine outlets.
NOW, I understand the "new direction", after the HuffPost acquisition; i.e. extreme corporate cost cutting, with substitution of the HuffPost's "USA Today" idea of "news", and "Patch" Chamber of Commerce type local stuff, instead of links to major outlets and the better subject blogs like yours.
Yes, my AOL address is embarassing, but not for long. They are not going to support MyAOL, and this old, "late adopter" is long overdue to be on his way elsewhere. I had hope for the new HuffHeistAOL, because I appreciate Arianna's (apparent) political stance, and thought that her/their corporate decisions would be consumer and employee-friendly. Guess I should not have been surprised; she, rather abruptly, changed political sides too, not long ago.
Guess we should "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" (did someone already do that here?). Sorry, Uri, but you need a better sense of balance, and humor.
August 24, 2011 at 2:28 pm
As you brag that you were the first to Tweet the manager's email, as if it was some feat of incredible digital journalism, you apologize because she got fired? I think you are innocent.