Huffington Post is flashy. It's sexy. It combines gaudy tabloid excess with erudite commentary by some of the country's brightest stars in the worlds of politics, entertainment, business and journalism.
And it's one of the most popular blogs on the planet, drawing millions of visitors and pageviews every month.
But HuffPo, as it's known, has also sparked controversy with its practice of excerpting articles from other news sites. Some have even accused HuffPo of stealing.
Huffington Post was founded in 2005 by author/socialite Arianna Huffington and media executive Kenneth Lerer as a liberal alternative to conservative blogs like the Drudge Report.
HuffPo quickly became known for its use of big, splashy photos, boldfaced, tabloid-style headlines and blogposts by celebrities such as Alec Baldwin and Daryl Hannah.
And Huffpo isn't above showing some skin. "Celebs Strip Down on Twitter" read one recent headline, not far from a video of Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli lolling about on a bed, naked but for a strategically placed bedsheet.
HuffPo, like many blogs, combines opinionated blogposts of its own with aggregated web content that comes from a variety of news sites. But Huffpo has also made a point of doing some of its own original reporting. Earlier this year Huffington announced that the site would help bankroll a group of 10 journalists to produce investigative reports.
By any measure, HuffPo has been wildly successful. In February 2008, the site drew 3.7 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen Online, beating out The Drudge Report. One year later HuffPo had 8.9 million unique visitors. The site was named among the 25 Best Blogs of 2009 by Time Magazine and is ranked no. 1 by authority (the number of blogs linking to a website) on Technorati's list of top 100 blogs.
Controversy Over Aggregation & Excerpts
At a time when newspapers are awash in red ink and some are either bankrupt or closing altogether, HuffPo's practice of aggregating and excerpting articles from other news sites has drawn fire.
At a recent Senate hearing on the future of newspapers, Huffington was one of those called to testify. She proclaimed the virtues of online journalism and declared that “the future of quality journalism is not dependent on the future of newspapers" - even though HuffPo relies in part on free newspaper reporting.
But bloggers in general and by extension Huffington in particular came under withering criticism from David Simon, an ex-Baltimore newspaperman who drew upon his experiences to produce the TV series “The Wire.”
“The internet ... does not deliver much first-generation reporting,” Simon said. Instead, “it leeches that reporting from mainstream news publications, whereupon aggregating websites and bloggers contribute little more than repetition, commentary and froth."
Huffington touted the investigative team her site is assembling, but Simon pointed out that local and regional papers – which are in the greatest trouble – won’t be replaced by websites like the Huffington Post that focus on more glamorous national stories.
"The day I run into a Huffington Post reporter at a Baltimore zoning board hearing," said Simon, "is the day that I will be confident that we have actually reached some sort of equilibrium."
Accusations of Theft
Some HuffPo critics have accused the site of outright theft. Soon after HuffPo started a Chicago version of its site, an editor at alternataive weekly Chicago Reader accused it of stealing their copyrighted concert reviews and reprinting them.
HuffPo's Jonah Peretti has said the re-printing was a mistake. But others say HuffPo's practice of using two- to three-paragraph excerpts of articles taken from other websites constitutes a possible violation of copyright. Huffington has said the practice falls under the fair use doctrine.
Critics also rip HuffPo for not paying its bloggers, even though a New Yorker magazine article estimated the site had yearly revenues of up to $10 million.
"...it's unconscionable for Huffington and Lerer and the backers of HuffPo to create millions for themselves on the backs of bloggers duped into working for 'visibility,'" Advertising Age columnist Simon Dumenco wrote recently.
Huffington: I Didn't Kill Newspapers, Okay?
Huffington, for her part, says the anger aimed her way over the collapse of the newspaper business is misdirected.
In a recent speech in New York, Huffington said many factors - the economic meltdown and the Craigslist classifieds website, to name a few - have helped deep-six newspapers. And she said the focus needs to be on saving journalism, not saving newspapers.
