Freelancers and design mag blogs

I heard today (so this is hearsay) that freelancers are paid less to write for design mag blogs than to write for the printed versions - "less" meaning "zip" in at least one case. This is for original content, not the reuse of articles that previously appeared in print and were written for that purpose. The gist was that design mags regard such writing as being tossed off anyway and worth the freelancer's doing mainly or merely for the exposure. Does this mean that they're not making money on their blogs? That so many people blog for free that this lowers the standard for everyone? That blogs aren't taken seriously by the design press, although they feel obliged to have them? It may be all of the above.