The Huffington Post

Infobox Dotcom company
company_name = The Huffington Post
company_
company_type = Private
genre =
foundation = May 2005
founder = Arianna Huffington,
Kenneth Lerer
location_city = New York, NY
location_country = USA
area_served =
key_people = Arianna Huffington
industry =
products =
services =
revenue =
owner = Arianna Huffington,
Kenneth Lerer
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees = 43
parent =
divisions =
subsid =
company_slogan = The Internet Newspaper: News Blogs Video Community
url = [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ www.huffingtonpost.com]


caption =
website_type = Blogging
language = English, German, Spanish
advertising =
registration = Optional
launch_date = 2005
current_status = Active

The Huffington Post (often referred to on the Internet as HuffPo) is a liberal [cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/25/huffington.post|title=Huffington Post: From millionaire's blog to leading liberal newspaper|accessdate=2008-09-18|date=August 25, 2008|work=Guardian News|author=Schofield, Jack] news website and aggregated weblog founded by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, featuring various news sources and columnists. The site covers a wide range of topics, including sections devoted to politics, entertainment, media, living, business, and the green movement. "The Huffington Post" was launched on May 9, 2005 as a commentary outlet. Its roster of bloggers includes many people from Arianna Huffington's network of prominent friends.

Contributors

In addition to columns by Huffington and a core group of contributors (such as Harry Shearer, John Conyers, and Rosie O'Donnell) and Roy Sekoff, Founding Editor, the Huffington Post has featured notable celebrity contributors from politics, journalism, business, and entertainment (Norman Mailer, John Cusack, and Bill Maher). The Huffington Post publishes scoops of current news stories, otherwise providing links to selected prominent news stories, providing a liberal counterpoint to sites such as "The Drudge Report". Compared to other left-wing blogs such as the expertise-heavy "Znet" or the long-established "Daily Kos", "The Huffington Post" offers both news commentary and coverage. It has a policy of encouraging comments from all parts of the political spectrum. The comment section is home to discussions on politics, religion, and world affairs.

"The Huffington Post's" OffTheBus is a citizen-powered online news organization that is a collaboration between "The Huffington Post", NYU, and Jay Rosen's NewsAssignment.Net. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/off-the-bus/] "The Huffington Post's" "FundRace" is a website that tracks contributions to the presidential campaigns and includes a mapping feature that shows contributions broken down by city, neighborhood, and block. [http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/]

A comprehensive list of contributors to the "The Huffington Post" blog can be found in its alphabetical [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/index/ Bloggers Index] .

Investment

In August 2006, it was announced that Softbank Capital would invest $5 million in the online news site, which has grown dramatically popular in only a year, to help expand it. Plans include hiring more staff to update the site 24 hours a day, hiring in-house reporters, and a multimedia team to do video reports. Alan Patricof's Greycroft Partners also invested. The news marks the site's first "first round of venture capital funding." [ [http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2006-08-08T001950Z_01_N07410385_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-MEDIA-HUFFINGTON-DC.XML&from=business Softbank Capital invests $5 mln in Huffington Post] , Reuters, August 7, 2006, accessed October 18, 2006]

The site now has invested in Vlogging, or video blogging, with many of the site contributors contributing via video, and capturing clips in the media and posting them on the site.

Awards

The Huffington Post won the 2006 and 2007 Webby Awards for Best Politics Blog.

Huffington Post contributor Bennet Kelley was awarded the Los Angeles Press Club's 2007 Southern California Journalism Award for Online Commentary [ [http://www.lapressclub.org/index.cfm?page=page&pageid=56&cat=45&subcat=56&subsubcat=&id=30773 49th Southern California Journalism Award Winners] ] for political commentary published on the site. [ [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/ Huffington Post page for Bennet Kelley] .]

It is ranked the most powerful blog in the world by "The Observer". [cite web | title = The world's 50 most powerful blogs | url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/09/blogs | publisher = The Observer | date = 2008-03-09 | accessdate = 2008-09-23]

Controversy

Fox News television anchor Bill O'Reilly, as well as conservative media watchdog MRC, have brought attention to the "Huffington Post" hosting controversial statements on its blogs, and Arianna Huffington's initial refusal to remove them. Some examples include various independent authors sharply criticizing Americans supportive of the War in Iraq, accusing Dick Cheney of terrorizing enemies abroad and innocent citizens at home, and criticizing the Bush administration for indiscriminate spending. [ [http://www.mrc.org/SpecialReports/2007/huffington/report0912_exec.asp Huffington’s House of Horrors] ]

Perhaps the most controversial comments were made in mid-February 2008, after former First Lady Nancy Reagan fell at her California home.cite web|title=Hate Speech and the 'Net|accessdate=2008-05-04|publisher=BillOReilly.com|author=O'Reilly, Bill|date=February 21, 2008|url=http://www.billoreilly.com/newslettercolumn?pid=22771] cite news|url=http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/02/bill_oreilly_arianna_huffingto.html|work=New York Magazine|accessdate=2008-09-06|title=Bill O’Reilly: Arianna Huffington Is a Bad, Bad Girl Who Needs to Be Punished|date=February 22, 2008] Negative comments about the then-86-year-old former first lady were posted in the public comment section of the website by members of the public. Commentator Bill O'Reilly opined, "Apparently, Arianna Huffington, the woman who runs the site, has no problem with publishing hate speech. Ms. Huffington has the power to remove this trash immediately, but she chooses not to." Arianna Huffington said that hateful comments are not tolerated and are taken down as soon as they come to the attention of the blog's moderators. [ [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/bill-oreilly-needs-to-en_b_92646.html|Bill O'Reilly Needs to Enroll in "Understanding the Internet 101"] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ The Huffington Post]
* [http://www.robotwisdom.com/sites/huffpo.html First-week index]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1470172,00.html The Guardian: "Uber-blog raises a celebrity voice"]