The Huffington Post

Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor in chief of The Huffinton Post, a news and blog cite that since its creation has become one of the internets more respected and linked/cited blog pages. Huffington was recognized in 2005 by Time magazine as one of the world’s most influential people. Additionally, Huffington is also a co-host of the radio program “Left, Right and Center” representing “the fourth dimension of political time and space, the independent-progressive blogosphere.”
Huffington’s blog is highly intelligent and is not for the armature follower of political news and opinion. Her Blog entries combine her personal opinion and the facts of the topic. Huffington’s knowledge the facts and figures of a given topic are far beyond the typical reader. However, Huffington does attempt to make the news as accessible to the reader as possible. One way Huffington does this is by embedding many links within each entrie that allow the reader to skip around and read what she is basing her argument on. In example, if she cites or mentions a report on government earmarks, then the word earmark will take you to the report and/or other relevant information.
Arianna Huffington makes her blog entries comprehensive, but it is no mystery that Huffington injects her political insight and opinion into several aspects of an issue. A careful writer/editor and fantastic orator, Huffington, while contentious on many levels, rarely leaves herself open to attack. However, huffington has made transition from identifying more with the right to becoming a left leaning centrist.
The Website ‘Huffingtonpost.com’ is a news and blog publication. The cite features top news stories as well as blogs pages for each of the publication contributors. The website is packed full with links. From top name publications like Newsweek and The Washington Post, to online news cites and columnist blogs and opinion pages. The Huffington post wants and needs their readers to have access to the appropriate background information.
The Huffington Post recognizes its place in the news world. In addition to providing links to news organizations that may appear ‘more creditable’ The Huffington Post has a 23/6 section (a play on 24/7) Where the publication reports “Some of the News, Most of the Time.” This section of the publication solidifies the Huffington Post as a sideline contributor to the news, but by no means an authority.
Huffington’s blogosphere is in many ways a cross between ‘real’ news and contentious ‘blog’ news. The Blog maintains the rules/standards/ethics and morals of journalism, while being obligated to follow none of them. To further distance herself from the ‘typical’ news outlets, Huffington adds a purposefully apparent dash of humor to the whole publication. This hold true to the many contributing writers of The Huffington Post
A clear focus of the webpage is the forums provided by The Huffington Post. Every article, opinion, poll, statistic and picture has a place where comments can be left and read. The Huffington Post has a moderate turnover rate of stories, but generally each story receives about 200 posted comments before it is replaced. This is a testament to the vastness of the online community that The Huffington Post supports.
Advertising on the website is extremely limited. Generally there is one advertisement on the ‘front/home’ page for the publication. After that advertising is restricted to the margins.
Arianna Huffington’s blog lives in an interesting cross section of political news reporting. While she has her facts straight, she lacks total credibility as a journalist. While all the typical requirements are met by Arianna and the staff of the Huffington Post, their place in the news world as a ‘fourth party’ of sorts limits their influence and credibility. However, this does not diminish the importance of The Huffington post and the void in the news world that it fills.