Celebrity Blog Launched by Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington said she planned to open the Internet "group blog," the Huffington Post, next month. She said she wanted to create a dynamic salon for opinions that could "expand the dialogue to more than just one side of the political spectrum." Huffington is an author, newspaper columnist, radio commentator, and television fixture. Huffington now plans on upping her exposure with another venture — and inviting 300 of her big-name friends and associates along for the party to post on the group blog.Web journalists and commentators anticipating the planned May 9 launch said they were impressed with the stature of the participants Huffington signed on to write for the website (www.huffingtonpost.com) — including newsman Walter Cronkite, music mogul David Geffen, former Sen. Gary Hart, writer David Mamet, attorney Vernon E. Jordan Jr. and novelist Norman Mailer. "It's creating a new environment that is not really like traditional blogging," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "Is this a new kind of communication: a unique, elite blog-salon? Or is this just Arianna Huffington trying to find another career? We don't know yet."
Huffington, 54, began supplementing her syndicated newspaper column about a year ago with a Web log, or blog. She said at the time that the form was "the greatest breakthrough in popular journalism since Tom Paine broke onto the scene," referring to the American Revolution-era writer. In her proposed inaugural column, she calls the Huffington Post an "innovative group blog where some of this country's most creative minds will weigh in on topics great and small, political and cultural, important or just plain entertaining."
Arianna Huffington will maintain her Los Angeles base, with a paid seven-member staff in New York drawing together material for a continuing news feed that will supplement the unpaid commentaries.
posted by Celebrity Poker Party @ 12:41 PM
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