Taxable citizen journalism?

Um:

The IRS defines gifts on its web site: "You make a gift if you give property (including money), or the use of or income from property, without expecting to receive something of at least equal value in return." Thus, when citizen journalists give content to media outlets, they are making a gift. Surprise! Most people do not realize that donors, not recipients, pay gift taxes.

This possible tax minefield also came as a surprise to many media experts. When StinkyJournalism.org approached David Ardia, the director of Harvard University's Citizen Media Law Project, with this unspoken and often unrecognized peril for citizen journalists, he responded, "I think this would come as a surprise to most people who consider themselves citizen journalists. They have very little idea of legal issues around the work they are doing and even less knowledge about the tax implications around what they're doing...It is an area yet to be investigated."

The founder and president of the Media Bloggers Association, a nonpartisan non-profit organization that promotes citizen journalism, Robert Cox, agrees. "This is a real earthquake into the financial model. [This] would certainly have an impact on Huffington Post and a few others...that get content that they don't pay for. It is a real issue. Nobody has thought about it at all."