There has been something of a kerfuffle in the blogosphere about a writer who was asked to contribute a piece to the Atlantic gratis, huffily and snippily declined, and was then set upon by the "market forces dictate free content!" crowd.
There are basically no winners in this fight, and all sides have acquitted themselves just shy of horribly. I ever-so-briefly enter the fray only to point out the idea that asking someone to contribute their work for free—while certainly annoying, especially to the already-established journos out there—is neither immoral nor unethical, as the aggrieved freelancer suggests here.
Consider, briefly, this post: Prince of Petworth, a local blogger whose work I am quite fond of, asks his readers to send along photos of a sinkhole in D.C.'s streets. He is soliciting their labor and their effort for the benefit of his website (from which he earns some amount of money, I have no idea how much) and in exchange is offering no compensation. This is not an immoral act. It is not an unethical one. It is not something that we will get worked up about or complain is costing hardworking wire photographers their jobs.
So why do we treat the Atlantic any differently? Why do we feel comfortable attacking the reporters who do get paid for their work? Why do we spend hundreds of thousands of words kvetching about David Bradley's organization doing the same?