On Thursday, Dr. Lee received an email from someone who represented himself as the blog editor at Biology-Online.org, which is a blog platform and aggregator, and a partner site with SciAm. The editor asked if Dr. Lee would be interested in contributing to their site. After some Q and A back and forth regarding whether this was work for pay or for free, and after hearing that there was no compensation, Dr. Lee responded:

Thank you very much for your reply.

But I will have to decline your offer.

Have a great day.

According to emails which Dr. Lee screengrabbed, here was the editor’s response:

Because we don’t pay for blog entries?

Are you an urban scientist or an urban whore?

I want to just let that sink in for a minute. A professional was asked to work for no compensation. She declined politely. And was called a whore.

Now, let’s be clear: Lots of us get asked to work for free lots of the time. I probably get approached at least once a week. (For clarity: I do not blog for free at Wired; we are on contract and paid.) Sometimes we say yes, if the opportunity is right; sometimes we decline if we are overworked already or if the non-monetary compensation being offered is not aligned with whatever else we want or need to do.

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