AOL puts the "free" in freelancing*, **

AOL plans to fire all of its freelancers at Moviefone and Cinematical, but wants them to know they're still welcome to write for the sites - for free. In other words, the Huffington Post blogger model. Here's part of the email (via fishbowlLA) to the freelancers:

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.

AOL-Huffington, redefining "value" one website at a time.

*Update: I'm told AOL Patch freelancers still get $50 a pop, so this policy has not hit them yet.

**Update II: The AOL editor who sent the above email was fired for its "erroneous" tone, the Wrap reports. Apparently, freelancers aren't being invited to become unpaid bloggers. They're being invited to apply for paid positions. However, if they don't get them, and they want to continue writing for Huffington Post or another AOL platform, they are free to do so. For free.

Hitting bottom

James Rainey at the Los Angeles Times talks about the free fall in freelance pay and the stories that don't get told because of it. LAT

Downtown gets smaller

The L.A. Downtown News has eliminated free distribution of its paper in several communities. Here's the note to readers:

Over the holidays we at L.A. Downtown News made a permanent adjustment to our distribution. We are now concentrating our free distribution more narrowly on Downtown and its close-in environs. We have kept all our historic distribution throughout Downtown, Echo Park and Silverlake – nearly 1000 locations. But we stopped distribution to Pasadena, Glendale and Larchmont. Apologies to readers in those areas a little further from Downtown, but it just got too expensive to keep anything other than our primary distribution.

Column lynch

Tina Dupuy wants to get paid - or at least go viral. The co-host of fishbowlLA has sent a video letter to the Tampa Tribune to demand $75 for an opinion column she sent to the newspaper. The paper published it without offering her remuneration - or even notification.

North Korea frees journalists

ABC News reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has pardoned Current TV journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

*New York Times Lede blog.