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Arianna Huffington: Announcing HuffPost Green: Our New Eco-News and Opinion Sectio...
Latest Eco Trend: Buy Less, Live More
By: Arianna Huffington
When we picked June 4th as the launch day for HuffPost's new Green section, little did we know the Democratic nomination would be decided just the night before.
So today, as well as celebrating the culmination of a historic primary race, we here at HuffPost are also celebrating the kick-off of HuffPost Green.
Ever since we launched HuffPost, environmental issues have been a significant part of our focus -- indeed, part of our DNA. In fact, long before HuffPost was even a twinkle in our eye, I was championing, via the Detroit Project, the need to push the nation's energy policy in a more sustainable direction -- better both for our environment and our national security.
And our HuffPost community has made it clear that you are interested in learning about -- and talking about -- living in a more environmentally-friendly way.
So as we continue the Huffington Post's expansion, creating a go-to destination for the latest and most useful Green content was a logical next step.
HuffPost Green features up-to-the-minute news stories, blog posts, video, and community forums. The focus is on eco news and trends -- from the latest scientific findings and environmental legislation to the latest green lifestyle tips. The section will also feature advice on sustainable investing and highlight eco-friendly businesses such as renewable energy, green building, recycling and organics.
While bringing about real change is critically important -- we don't think going green has to be like taking your medicine. So don't expect any finger-wagging (well, not too much anyway). We're not interested in being greener-than-thou -- just greener today than yesterday. Our philosophy is pretty simple: it's not about some people doing everything, but everyone doing something to make the world a more sustainable and better place to live.
And to ensure that we are bringing you the smartest, freshest, and most useful green content, we have partnered with two of the world's premiere green media brands -- Discovery's popular sustainable-living website, TreeHugger.com, and Planet Green, Discovery's 24-hour eco-lifestyle television network.
TreeHugger will provide its blend of timely blog postings, video features, news items, and forums where users can interact. Planet Green will contribute highlights of its original green lifestyle programming -- content for people of all ages and backgrounds. And our editors will infuse this green mix with the usual HuffPost style and attitude.
So please click here to check it out. And, most importantly, send us any ideas you have for HuffPost Green, including any green news items you think our readers would like to see. Latest Eco Trend: Buy Less, Live More By: Arianna Huffington ... more -
Game-Changer: how the online news revolution is altering the media landscape
by: Arianna Huffington
Media on The Huffington Post
BusinessWeek is updating a cover story it did three years ago on how the impact of blogs is changing the media landscape and asked me to weigh in. Here is what I sent them:
I am frequently asked if the rising influence of online news sources is the death knell for Big Media. My answer is that Big Media isn't dead; it's ill but will actually be saved by the transfusion of passion and immediacy of the blogging and online news revolution.
The growth of New Media journalism has served as a wake-up call. A wake-up call the industry, after years of yawning and repeatedly hitting the snooze button, has finally started to heed. The result will be a journalistic hybrid combining the best aspects of traditional print newspapers with the best of what the Web brings to the table. We're getting a glimpse into this hybrid future with the many changes afoot at Old Media places like the Washington Post and the New York Times, and from New Media players like, well, like the Huffington Post.
We've seen the New York Times recently and enthusiastically embrace the notion of blogging, and the Washington Post has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into its digital operations -- and as a result gone from being a largely local paper with a print circulation of around 650,000 to an international digital news source attracting over 8.5 million online readers a month.
And just as Old Media players are embracing the ways of the New Media, some in the New Media are beginning to perform some of the key functions formerly reserved for the media establishment -- namely breaking major news stories and offering original reporting.
Equally exciting is the fact that technology will continue to give readers more and more control over what kind of information they get, and how that information will be presented. The days of publishing pooh-bahs dictating what is important and what is not are over. And thank goodness. Because the big question has always been: what page will today's real front page story actually appear on? As the legendary journalist I.F. Stone once said of the Washington Post: it's a particularly exciting paper to read because "you never know on what page you will find a page-one story."
The debate that has been dominating journalistic circles for the last few years has been print vs. online -- but, in fact, that discussion is totally obsolete. It's as musty as the old barroom argument about Ginger vs Mary Ann. It's 2008, why not have a three-way? Traditional media have ADD -- they are far too quick to drop a story -- even a good one, so eager are they to move on to the next big thing. Online journalists, meanwhile, tend to have OCD -- we chomp down on a story and stick with it and stick with it and stick with it, refusing to move on until we've gotten down to the marrow.
The shifting dynamic between the forces of print and online reminds me of the relationship between Sarah Conner and the T-101 in the Terminator movies. At first, the visitor from the future (digital) seemed intent on killing Sarah (print). But as the relationship progressed and the sequels unspooled, the Terminator became Sarah and her son's one hope for salvation. Today, you can almost hear digital media (which for some reason has a thick Austrian accent) saying to print: "Come with me if you want to live!"
The hybrid future is kicking down the door. It's time to let it in and fully embrace it. by: Arianna Huffington Media on The Huffington Post ... more -
Huffington blasts corporate media and lampoons McCain
With the timing that PR people drool over, Arianna Huffington hit New York City in a mad dash of media attention and activities this past Friday to promote her new book with the mouthful of a title: Right is Wrong -- How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe (And What You Need to Know to End the Madness).
Just as Huffington was arriving in New York, she revealed -- on her blog, of course -- that John McCain bashed George Bush something nasty at a dinner party in L.A. in 2000. And that night McCain went so far as to insist that he didn't vote for the Bush Leaguer in that election. The New York Times and other media ran with the story, and it was a marvel to watch as Huffington, always multitasking, handled the press on McCain while effortlessly hammering away on the themes of her book. With the book's last chapter titled: "John McCain, Hijacked by the Right," it all made for a nice, neat package.
As Huffington traversed the storm-whipped Manhattan -- one of those nasty urban days where wind and rain snarled traffic and made empty cabs a rarity, twisted umbrellas into awkward shapes, and generally made life damp, wrinkled and miserable -- she stayed dry and laughingly suggested that it was a good tactic to have McCain repeating over and over how he voted for and supports George Bush, since Bush's approval numbers were in the basement (under 30 percent).
Early in Huffington's N.Y. day were appearances on Air America Radio and on Laura Flander's pioneering new daily multimedia TV/Web show, called Grit TV. I joined Flanders for a feisty give and take with Huffington, focused both on McCain and one of the fundamental themes of her book: "How the corporate media has become the right wing's best friend." Watch the video in the window to your right.
Flanders, a persistently under-utilized media talent, is trying something altogether different with a national TV magazine show on Free Speech TV. (The show airs on satellite. It also has a daily presence with streaming video on the creative blog FireDogLake, where former Hollywood producer Jane Hamsher and team are building a powerful presence by embracing activism and creative media strategies.)
In our interview with Flanders, Huffington hammered away at the corporate media for enabling the worst right-wing habits and at the Democrats for needing a spine implant. Meet the Press's Tim Russert got eviscerated for being a zombie of conventional wisdom and rerunning, over and over, ideas that have been consistently and widely discredited by journalists and experts.
In terms of Bill Kristol, the New York Times' new columnist whose record on Iraq is beyond horrible, she asks the question: "How wrong do you have to be to get kicked out of the media? I kiddingly said that Kristol should be sent to Guantánamo for his war crimes, but Arianna, ever on message, said, "No, we should close Gitmo down."
Huffington's public festivities on Friday ended at a book party at the Chambers Hotel, one of those new, stylish boutique models that have sprouted up as NYC hotel prices have gone the way of oil ($400-$500 a night for a room has become the norm). The party was hosted by Huffington gal pal and star author Kathy Freston, her husband Tom, former head honcho at MTV and CEO of Viacom, and Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone mag owner and his partner Matt Nye. The hotel offered a signature Blood Orange Cosmo that had more than a few party goers feeling a little tipsy. With the timing that PR people drool over, Arianna Huffington hit New York City in a mad dash of media attention and activities this p... more -
McCain, Huffington trade barbs over his 2000 vote
Did Republican presidential candidate John McCain vote for President George W. Bush in 2000?
Liberal Internet blogger Arianna Huffington says McCain told her he did not. But the Arizona senator says he did vote for Bush, a fellow Republican, in 2000 and campaigned for him all over the country after his own attempt to win the party's nomination failed.
The claims and counterclaims may provide an entertaining distraction from the day-to-day battle for votes for this November's presidential election, when McCain will face one of two Democratic contenders, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
But Huffington said in an interview the dust-up over the item she posted on her Web site earlier this week has broader meaning than whether or not McCain voted for his rival in the 2000 race for the Republican nomination.
"It's John McCain's relationship with the truth that's at stake here. It's not John McCain's relationship with me," Huffington said. Did Republican presidential candidate John McCain vote for President George W. Bush in 2000? ... more -
Tim Russert Blackballing Arriana at NBC???
It seems that Arianna Huffington has run up against the impenetrable wall that is Tim Russert's ego. Huffington, who is currently on tour for her new book Right Is Wrong: How The Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded The Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe, will be appearing on CNN, ABC, and CBS. She had been booked on Morning Joe and Countdown with Keith Olbermann as well, but those bookings were suddenly and inexplicably cancelled.
NBC confirmed that Huffington wouldn't be booked on any NBC-affiliated show to promote her book, but refused to explain why. Huffington's people say that this is Tim Russert's doing, that Russert is out for revenge because Huffington called him a "conventional wisdom zombie" in her book and devoted seven pages to faulting Russert for allowing his Meet the Press guests to go unchallenged (not to mention HuffPo's RussertWatch). It seems that Arianna Huffington has run up against the impenetrable wall that is Tim Russert's ego. Huffington, who is currently... more -
Media Reform Begins with ME!
The great program is taking shape and they have already lined up amazing speakers like Bill Moyers, Arianna Huffington, Amy Goodman, Naomi Klein, Juan Gonzalez, Van Jones, Lawrence Lessig, Sen. Byron Dorgan, FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein -- and so many more. The great program is taking shape and they have already lined up amazing speakers like Bill Moyers, Arianna Huffington, Amy Goodman, N... more
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Arianna Huffington
