Huffington Post Launches New Contributor System And Bloggers Are Furious

The Huffington Post is hard at work to grow their network of unpaid contributors. However, the new platform is causing quite the backlash from bloggers.

Digiday reports, “Since last year, the HuffPost has been talking about reaching 1 million contributors, from 100,000. To reach that lofty goal, the HuffPost introduced a new content management system, which it named Athena, that enables contributors to publish directly to the site and sidestep the previous screening process.”

While bloggers look as contributing to The Huffington Post, they are complaining that the new system forces them to work harder for no compensation.

“Since Athena took effect, it’s definitely more difficult to get a post featured,” explains blogger Michelle Zunter.

Zunter, like many, has begun to direct their attention to other sites, such as YourTango and Salon.

“Blogger reaction has been mixed, but the overall feeling I’ve noticed has been anger,” said Candis Hidalgo, a mom blogger. “Even before this change, there were conflicting opinions in the blogging community about whether or not it was ‘worth it’ to write for Huffington Post since they don’t pay. So now that they’re more selective about which posts are featured, many bloggers have just turned their back on it completely.”

Bryan Maygers, executive contributor editor for the HuffPost argues that Athena was introduced as a way to streamlined and modernize the contributing process for its bloggers. On their end, it has been extremely successful and built up the network by thousands.

So, what do you think? Is it still worth contributing to The Huffington Post with the introduction of Athena?