Business

Freelancers say Louise Blouin Media stiffed them

Louise Blouin, a globe-trot ting philanthropist billed as one of the richest women in Britain, apparently has a nasty habit of stiffing lowly freelance writers who toil for her mini-publishing empire, which puts out Art + Auction and artinfo.com.

The New York company, which was once known as LTB Media and now seems to be calling itself Louise Blouin Media, also puts out Modern Painters and Gallery Guides and has been churning through high-level people almost from the moment Blouin arrived in the US five years ago.

James Truman, the onetime editorial director of Condé Nast had a short-lived hitch as editorial director and CEO of LTB, where he launched Culture + Travel magazine, which has since receded to a Web-only title. Alexandra Peers, currently editor-at-large at The New York Observer, had been announced as a replacement in 2007, but quit before ever taking the job in a contract dispute.

More recently, Rebecca Carroll left Blouin’s employ and was replaced six months ago by Ben Genocchio as editorial director of artinfo.com and Art + Auction.

The staff was downsized, even as the publisher announced new editions across the globe. The rumor for awhile was that Yahoo! was interested in taking over the artinfo.com site, which the company bills as “the most comprehensive resource for art, culture and travel news, auction pricing, and gallery and museum event information.”

The disgruntled freelancers from artinfo have banded together to form an ad hoc group that they’ve dubbed WAAANKAA — which stands for Writers Angry At Artinfo Not Kidding Around Anymore.

The group claims to have several dozen members, who say their pleas for payment for stories already commissioned and published have fallen on deaf ears. “I think it is absolutely disgraceful that they were assigning stories even when they knew they were not paying for past stories,” said Caroline Ryder, one of the founders of WAAANKAA who said she is owed about $700.

Ben Hartley, president of Blouin Media, issued a statement saying that all is well while the company goes through a period of “unprecedented growth” at the same time as it is “adjusting our payment cycles.

“Like many companies, we have been adjusting our payment cycles to more closely align with the timing of our actual revenues,” Hartley said. “The past six months have been a time of unprecedented growth for Louise Blouin Media. Despite the difficult environment, Art + Auction magazine has recorded significant year-on-year increases in advertising revenue.”

That doesn’t seem to be helping the freelancers much, however.

“They have a culture of not paying writers,” said Ryder. “If you take this against the backdrop of her incredible wealth and their expansion into two countries, you have to seriously question what is going on. I’m not even sure if Louise is aware what is happening.”

Ryder said the rumor months ago was that artinfo.com was going to be acquired by Yahoo! but that transaction never transpired.

“When the deal didn’t go through, they didn’t pay anyone,” she claimed.

Ryder said she and various writers have tried contacting everyone from the current editorial director Genocchio to the accounts receivable person and the chief operating officer. Most of their e-mails and calls have not been returned. When pressed, Hartley insisted, “Louise Blouin Media always pays our freelance journalists and has every intention of settling any outstanding invoices.”

New digs

There are advantages to being owned by a real estate scion. The New York Observer is vacating its offbeat offices at 915 Broadway at 21st St. for new facilities at 321 W. 44th St., which will now be dubbed The Observer Building.

The naming rights probably weren’t too costly. The landlord is the Kushner Organization. Jared Kushner, a scion and co-owner of the real estate company, is the owner of the Observer Media Group.

The new site sits catty-corner from one of the Observer’s main obsessions, The New York Times. The salmon-colored weekly will take up two floors in the building. Moving day is next Wednesday.

Time iPad app

Time magazine, which has taken most of its weekly magazine content off its free site, Time.com, and put it behind a pay wall, will soon be sell ing annual subscriptions through the Apple iPad app as well.

Right now, there are two ways to get the magazine: Buy it on newsstands for $4.95 or pay for it via the Apple iPad app, where it costs $4.99 per issue.

A Time spokeswoman said a subscription iPad version will be available in the next few months.

“Ninety percent of the material on Time.com is original content already,” said the spokeswoman.

kkelly@nypost.com