Media Bistro wondered if AOL is “scapegoating” Patricia Chui, the recently-fired Moviefone editor.
Chui e-mailed AOL’s Moviefone freelancers this week to say that “many” of Moviefone’s freelancers would be fired, but were “invited” to blog for free.
She later e-mailed to say that “we have not been asking freelancers (i.e., any of you) to become unpaid bloggers.”
Eric Snider, who published Chui’s e-mail, tweeted that if Chui “miscommunicated,” it’s Huffington Post/AOL’s fault for giving her “misinformation.” He also tweeted that he wouldn’t have posted the e-mail had he known “AOL was going to fire Patricia for TELLING US WHAT THEY TOLD HER TO TELL US.”
iMediaEThics wrote last month when Chui defended Moviefone’s e-mail asking Tech Crunch to “tone down” a movie review.
Moviefone is owned by AOL, which is now part of HuffPost’s media management..