(Thumbnail image from The Guardian)
“Arianna Huffington is everywhere.”
According to Forbes list of the 2009 Most Influential Women in the Media, Huffington ranks 12th.
On The Guardian’s 2009 Top 100 in the Media, she’s 42nd.
She co-hosts television news shows.
And has been a commentator and guest on everything from This Week with George Stephanopoulos to Comedy Central’s the Colbert Report.
A syndicated columnist and author of 12 books, Huffington co-founded and is the editor in chief of the popular news blog The Huffington Post. We have uncovered a range of perspectives on Huffington, her site.
Known for her belief in advocacy journalism, Huffington got an earful from Tucker Carlson at a C-SPAN discussion at the 2008 Republican National Convention when he gave his perspective on the Huffington’s brand of news.
“I am not attacking you Arianna cause I know you’re not like this, but one often hears the argument that you made that, well, splitting the difference doesn’t get to the truth. Some points of view are just so “prima facae” unreasonable we don’t take them seriously, like doubting global warming. Anybody who does that is just a Neanderthal and a moron and were not gonna’ even entertain the possibility that he might have something interesting to say. You start thinking like that and you become narrow, I think.”
In an interview with Fortune regarding her rank as 12th most influential woman in the media, Huffington refutes critics who say that the blog is partisan and narrow.
“We never just want to talk to people who agree with us, and we don’t just want voices that all agree. That’s why we have conservative blogging and we also have comments which are often critical of what appears on the site, but as long as they’re civil, we welcome the discussion.”
However, a post from her blog featured on the O’Reilly Factor in June questions this idea of civility and brings to light why come critics hesitate to call the Huffington Post a legitimate news source.
“This man Erik Sean Nelson who works for that web site said ‘Palin will be the first politician to actually try to increase the population of retarded people.” Nelson referring to the governors baby Trig born with Downs Syndrome. Obviously that’s despicable. The Huffington Post took that down from their web site, however Mr. Nelson continues to work for Mrs. Huffington.”
Featuring The Huffington Post in its top 25 blogs of 2009, TIME magazine highlighted the positive features of the web site that often get overlooked.
“HuffPo hasn't fallen into the usual blog trap of mistaking a rant for analysis; the site publishes consistently thoughtful commentary, lands its share of inside-the-Beltway scoops, and provides ample links to outside news sources so readers can run down stories for themselves."
What do you think of Arianna and The Huffington Post?
