MTV tacked on a $500 stocking stuffer to the final paychecks of those charity bloggers it was avoiding paying. Could it be the raunchy Viacom network believes in God? Or at least karma?

MTV claims checks are in the mail to the "citizen journalists" it really didn't want to pay, even though it got a big charity grant on their behalf. The network feels just terrible.

An MTV "citizen journalist," Erica Anderson, has gone public to describe "grueling" work conditions on a charity-sponsored project, and to confirm what anonymous coworkers told us Friday: The network isn't paying project staff.

Following our request for information yesterday, we heard from a good number of freelancers who said MTV was stiffing them on paychecks. Including people MTV got charity money to support.

Yesterday we brought you the epic, outraged email chain that ensued when Hip Hop Weekly mistakenly sent an invite for a fancy party it was throwing to a list of freelancers who hadn't been paid for their work. It only took one day for them to propose a class-action lawsuit and a protest march. Energetic! And while half of HHW's leadership is apparently trying to calm everyone down, the other half is dealing with the situation by screaming threats over the phone: From an unpaid photographer on the email list:

Freelancers pissed off at not being paid by Hip Hop Weekly are now reportedly planning a protest rally at this month's BET Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta, for some reason. The press release has been added to our earlier post.

Hip Hop Weekly is an execrable, half-assed attempt at a hip hop version of Us Weekly. HHW was founded a couple of years ago by Dave Mays and Benzino, the guys who ran The Source into the ground through sheer selfishness before being forced out. Suffice it to say there's no reason to have a sympathetic view of the magazine's existence. Which makes this epic email fuckup on their part—reprinted below!—that much more enjoyable: HHW, we hear, has trouble paying its vendors, writers, and photographers. Or just doesn't want to. Either way, lots of people who have done work for the magazine are pissed at it. So it was pretty dumb for HHW to (mistakenly?) blast out an invitation to its 50th issue release party to a long list of contributors who hadn't been paid yet. Cue the responses!

Laurel Touby, the millionaire founder of Mediabistro—which totally exists to give freelancers the false hope of getting media jobs—has been called upon to give a speech about "Best Practices in Freelancing." Except she's forgotten everything about freelancing, because she's a millionaire now! So she needs you freelancers to help:

Have you ever come across somebody who is ostensibly a "Writer/ Editor/ Educator," but doesn't seem to understand how those things work? [Name removed in the spirit of forgiveness] is just such a person! According her website she re-entered "the writing biz" in 2002, and has been keeping busy. She's even going to be writing a guest column in the Society of Professional Journalist's Quill magazine about "the importance of being one's own publicist." That's...uncomfortable, since her method is apparently to send the exact specifications for her stories out to a list of PR people, and then use whatever they come back with to "write" her "article." This is much more egregious than Profnet: A PR person writes to say, "I just wanted to point out the worlds laziest freelancer. she literally forwards her assignments to a list of publicists in a mass mailing and has them [write] the copy." Like this!:

Ah, Profnet—the easy-peasy electronic service that lets reporters put out requests for even the strangest sources. Then those requests are leaked to us, and we can all have a sympathetic laugh about the endlessly debasing things that freelancers have to go through just to pay the rent. Maybe you can help! Do you know much about smelly feet and/ or vaginas? Please get in touch at once!

We throw ourselves at your mercy. Paying taxes is a terrible bother for freelancers, which means us, your Gawker staff. A reader asked us to be servicey and offer our tips. BUT WE HAVE NONE. The only tax tip I ever got was "file quarterly," which I didn't do. But some of you commenters are like economic geniuses and stuff, right? Right? Then help a blogger out. Tell us what to do, and how to do it.

Be forwarned, youngsters: the magazine industry has no room for you any more. Also, it can't find you! You're all out there working on the blogs and not learning how to do real journalism. Which makes you suck! "These people don't leave their fucking laptops," says elderly writer Gay Talese. "It used to be, you would go outside." My, how things change for the Gay. The Observer's attempt to capture the magazine freelancing zeitgeist in article form is written by former Gawker blogger Doree Shafrir, a fact which does not seem to register with the irony-proof older generation quoted therein. So the aspirational young magazine crowd either succeeds quickly or withers away into bitterness at the closed doors of the industry, while old veterans of top-tier magazines grow increasingly out of touch and bemoan every little change since their golden days. Isn't this how things have always been?

"Brooklyn's 'creative self-employed' workers — its architects, designers, writers, jewelry makers — are growing. But what's to stop this population from fleeing the region? Perhaps special zoning to help them find affordable rents is one answer, according to Freelancers Union founder Sara Horowitz." They have that already. It's called "neighborhoods outside of Park Slope." [Metro]

What's this? Members of the Freelancers Union are up in arms over badly-executed changes to their health insurance benefits! Oh, the irony! On November 30, the union, which says it "represents the needs and concerns of America's growing independent workforce," sent a memo out to its 15,000 New York metropolitan-area members who receive health insurance through the organization, announcing that coverage under their current health plan, HIP, would end December 31 in favor of more expensive coverage under Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield. "If you want to wake up with insurance on New Year's Day, you have to let us know which of the plans from Empire or PerfectHealth you want," the announcement read. We're hearing that, despite having completed all the paperwork required for the union-wide switch, plenty of freelancers are indeed waking up this morning to an uninsured New Year! "FU dropped the ball on this," one union member complains on the chat section of the organization's site.

Is anyone confused by all the fuss over freelancer benefits in the Viacom mess? Freelancer, permalancer, part-time employee, full-time employee: What's the difference anymore? Why are Viacom's independent contractors complaining about having their benefits cut when the general impression is that freelancers don't qualify for benefits in the first place? Where does the actual, you know, law come down on this issue? And do most media companies abide by it? Let's learn more!

So the tussle between the Details freelancer and Ben Affleck gets murkier. Says a spokesperson about the mag's correction, which says the piece quotes Affleck saying things he did not say: "Statements taken out of context.... Nothing fabricated." Well, they can't have it both ways. The New York Observer asks: "Will Details run a correction of their correction?"

Our Freelancer Action Unit, an elite team of angry reporters, investigates publications that don't pay their freelancers. Got a gripe? Not getting paid? Drop a line!

Our Freelancer Action Unit, an elite team of angry reporters, investigates publications that don't pay their freelancers. Got a gripe? Not getting paid? Drop a line!

Earlier this week, a number of local freelance photojournalists received a curious email from New York Post photo editor David Boyle. It started by saying that the paper pays its freelance photographers "based on experience and equipment." Then Boyle went on to say that the paper was doing an "equipment audit," and as such, needed all of its freelancers to come in—with all of their equipment—to be inspected by Boyle and his deputies. Oh, and Boyle also wanted these photographers—who, remember, have presumably already been shooting for the Post—to "carry out a simulated assignment." The photogs who received this missive were, predictably, not amused; one photojournalism blog ranted, "What the hell does the fact that YOU are going to an equipment audit have to do with calling in freelancer's gear, unless you think they stole from you when you were practicing your home team cheers from days gone by and weren't minding the store?" Good point! The email follows.

Since Lloyd Grove left his gossip post at the Daily News late last year, he's been bouncing around various offices in New York as a freelancer. In fact, he might be sitting next to you right now! Look to your left—now look right? Is that Lloyd Grove? While through his prosody Mr. Lloyd is known to millions, in the flesh he might pass unnoticed, appearing to merely be any number of undistinguished and fleshy middle-aged white men. To let your proximity to greatness pass by without knowing would be to squander your one true brush with the immortal. To prevent that agony, we've assembled this helpful video from some old footage we found by the crapper.