Simon Dumenco goes on a rant about the Huffington Post's pronouncement that it will never pay its bloggers.

From Advertising Age: (h/t to Romenesko)

Betsy Morgan, bless her heart, is showing up just in time.

Last week, the Huffington Post, the liberal news/political blog co-founded by Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, successfully lured Morgan away from CBSNews.com. The inevitable headlines and analysis -- about how the scrappy blog was edging ever closer to mainstreamness by luring a respected news veteran to be its CEO -- was helpful not only in underscoring Huffington's status as a national media power broker.

It also helped everyone forget Lerer's astonishing statement in USA Today, just days earlier, that HuffPo has no plans to ever pay its bloggers. "That's not our financial model," he told the paper. "We offer them visibility, promotion and distribution with a great company."

Coming right out and saying that -- and saying it that way, with those particular words -- takes cojones. Not our financial model. Geez, wow. Not since the Pets.com sock puppet scored a deal to write his memoir (published in 2000 as "Me by Me: The Pets.com Sock Puppet Book") has there been a more tellingly, creepily poetic new-media moment. In fact, if it weren't for Betsy Morgan's vote of confidence in the Huffington Post -- if Morgan weren't willing to put her career on the line to endorse the blog's place in the media firmament -- Lerer's pronouncement could have been HuffPo's jump-the-shark moment.

Think about it: It wouldn't have cost Lerer anything to make some vague utterances about "eventual" profit sharing or stock options or page-view bonuses or some such. Instead, in a moment of delusional grandeur, he chose to announce that his and Arianna's celebrity-blogger serfs will always plow for free -- in exchange for not even for a bit of gristle and cold porridge, but for the PR!

Dumenco, who says he's a fan of the HuffPo's content, closed with this:

HuffPo's hiring of a manager like Betsy Morgan -- who is used to working with paid professionals in real media operations -- is not only heartening, it's essential. Because some day soon -- hopefully very soon -- the site will have to bid adieu to its something-for-nothing "financial model." And once you rely more on paid professionals than on "Will Blog for PR" celebs, that (thank God) changes everything.