• media

    Huffington Post Raises Incredible Amount Of Money

    We were impressed last month when it was rumored that the Huffington Post may have raised $15 million in new investment, a big accomplishment for a media company at a time when the media economy is in the trash. Well, those rumors turned out to be false. Actually, HuffPo has raised $25 million from a venture capital firm. Amazing. So what will they do with all this cash? More »

    10:55 AM on Mon Dec 1 2008
    By Hamilton Nolan
    1,912 views, 9 comments

    Most discussed squat6971: Maybe Arianna can start paying her people now? more »

  • media

    Reports: HuffPo Maybe, Coulda Raised $15 Million

    According to some reports, the Huffington Post has raised $15 million in a new round of investment. But nobody really knows for sure whether that's true, yet! Let us say right up front that if it is true—and the Times UK says it is—this will be the coup of the media meltdown. Raising cash like that in this economic environment is impressive, and we would have to tip our hats to HuffPo, and acknowledge that we have wildly underestimated them. Here are all of the details from various reports on Arianna's maybe-triumph: More »

    5:48 PM on Fri Nov 21 2008
    By Hamilton Nolan
    1,286 views, 8 comments

    Most discussed Truculent: There must be an awful lot of Arab money with nothing to do lying around. Arriana is a savvy businesswoman more »

  • editors from hell

    Screaming Arianna Breakdown Ahead Of Maddow Show?

    Arianna Huffington is guest-hosting Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC tonight, and the lineup looks impressively ambitious: Google CEO Eric Schmidt, HBO talk-show host Bill Maher, stat-whiz Nate Silver and Cory Booker, the Newark mayor to whom the internet publisher was once rumored romantically linked (absurdly, her staff thought). The high-profile lefty gig is an appropriate laurel for an ambitious woman whose left-leaning site produced landmark coverage and gangbusters traffic amid the 2008 election. But as former Huffington Post staff can attest (and have), television appearances also mean a frenzy of last-minute research for editors like Roy Sekoff or Colin Sterling who prepare Huffington's talking points. With an entire, hourlong show to host, rather than a brief guest appearance, it would be reasonable for staff to fear another of the screaming, teary emotional breakdowns described to us by several former HuffPo staffers. More »

    5:39 AM on Mon Nov 17 2008
    By Ryan Tate
    3,492 views, 24 comments

    Most discussed LGFrog: I'm sorry, AH is subbing for Rachel???? Whaaat? Does not compute. EW. more »

  • Economics

    Don't Worry New York Media, Bloomberg's Study Will Save You

    New York City Mayor-for-life Michael Bloomberg is bringing his Midas touch to the ailing media industry! In the form of a year-long study sponsored by the city. It's not that Bloomberg, who got rich running his own quasi-media company, has a soft spot for newsprint; it's that there are 160,000 media jobs in NYC, according to the Observer, and it would be beneficial for the municipal tax base not to allow them to crumble away in the face of a changing economy. The question is, can the city actually do anything about it? More »

    2:23 PM on Wed Nov 5 2008
    By Hamilton Nolan
    1,596 views, 14 comments

    Most discussed it takes a lot to laugh: You called it - like everything else Bloomberg has ever done, it will be a breaks for developers dressed up more »

  • Crime

    Huffington Post Writer Stabs Lover 222 Times

    It was inevitable that the Huffington Post would somehow end up sullied by recruiting such a massive army of unpaid contributors. But few would have imagined something this awful: Valued HuffPo political blogger Carol Anne Burger shot herself Friday, and police now believe she was responsible for the brutal murder of her former lover two days earlier. Burger was a scuba-diving instructor who brought an amateur's zeal to her work, and in this sense embodied the best of HuffPo's democratic approach, calling to mind fellow contributor Mayhill Fowler, who broke the "Bittergate" story. But the website will not be eager to associate itself with Burger's energy in dispatching Jessica Kalish. More »

    12:43 AM on Thu Oct 30 2008
    By Ryan Tate
    61,513 views, 105 comments

    Most discussed Minsley Tortimer: I thought lesbians would be more likely to go after each other with power tools, but whatever. more »

  • the internet

    Internet Doyennes Both Love Cash Bonfires

    It is easy to be so taken by Arianna Huffington's charm and personal history that one loses sight of the big picture. Just ask the New Yorker's Lauren Collins, whose profile of the Huffington Post publisher had too much on Huffington's yoga and sleeping habits and not enough about how she operates her business. The Times, too, seems to be overly concerned with personal narratives this morning, educating readers at length about how Huffington and royalist competitor Tina Brown went to fancy London parties together in the 1970s and both dated older men, so they're friendly rather than cutthroat competitors. Whatever. The real question: How is either of these money-losing publishers going to attract advertising? More »

    2:50 AM on Mon Oct 27 2008
    By Ryan Tate
    1,710 views, 12 comments

    Most discussed Nick Denton: Best line from Arango's piece, about Arianna Huffington and Tina Brown in swinging 1970s London: "Theirs was a world of more »

  • Listicle

    Five Real 2008 Election Winners

    The "voting" bit of the endless 2008 election has not yet happened, but honestly the winner of that particular contest is of little concern to anyone but plumbers and unemployed auto workers and ladies who want their precious "abortions." No, from here, two weeks out from Election Day, with Obama suspending his campaign and John McCain abandoning swing states, we can already plainly see who's really come out on top over these last couple months. Media whores! And, you know, media people who we actually like and wouldn't therefore call "whores." After the jump, the five real winners of the 2008 elections. More »

    2:32 PM on Tue Oct 21 2008
    By Pareene
    11,575 views, 68 comments

    Most discussed lobstr: Dunno, despite the funny three minutes of Fey-does-Palin, SNL as a whole is still horribly unfunny and unwatchable. more »

  • the huffington posts

    Arianna's Mandatory Cult Meetings

    Arianna Huffington for many years sought to downplay the extent of her involvement in the Movement For Spiritual Inner Awareness, a cult ex-members described as sexually and financially exploitive in a series of Los Angeles Times exposés in the 1980s and 1990s. During her then-husband's 1994 U.S. Senate run, the Greek-born socialite claimed movement founder John-Roger (pictured with her at a 2004 book party, left) was a mere friend, and pictures of him holding her daughter were ordered withheld from the group's newspaper, the editor later said. But the Huffington Post editor-in-chief is an ordained "Minister Of Light" in the group and once described John-Roger to Interview as her "way-shower." She relaxed a bit in the New Yorker's Oct. 13 profile , admitting she had been too "defensive" about John-Roger, and allowing writer Lauren Collins to listen to a guided MSIA meditation stored on Huffington's iPod. But she wasn't entirely forthcoming. What about the role she has fashioned for her cult in HuffPo staff development? More »

    9:15 AM on Fri Oct 17 2008
    By Ryan Tate
    6,815 views, 48 comments

    Most discussed Don Is: So, is this journalism or blogging? It sure feels like journalism to me. Great article Ryan. more »

  • memos

    Rachel Sklar Leaving Huffington Post

    To hear present and former Huffington Post employees tell it, the liberal website owes its ridiculously high turnover mainly to founder Arianna Huffington's tendency to use staffers to perform menial personal chores, to an internal culture of nasty screaming and name-calling and to a generally chaotic management structure, such as it is, subservient to Arianna's rapidly-changing whims. But Rachel Sklar managed to last a jaw-dropping two-and-a-half years at HuffPo, a rare achievement that saw her become one of the site's highest-profile editors and a frequent cable-TV talking head. Why would management, as our tipster claims, push Sklar out? Read between the lines in the memo after the jump. More »

    2:56 AM on Fri Oct 17 2008
    By Ryan Tate
    11,557 views, 34 comments

    Most discussed WickedWitchoftheWest: Aaron, just want to introduce myself. I am new around these parts, and obviously something of an insomniac. Your posts more »

  • retaliation

    Petty HuffPoors Snub Gawker!

    Hah! You write three little items about how blog mistress Arianna Huffington is a terror to work for and suddenly you're off the blogroll at the Huffington Post. Seriously! We've had a place on that long list since day one, but today... nothing. And after all we've done for you, Arianna! Need we remind you of that party Nick threw for you when you launched your goofy blog? (The funny thing here is that we've made fun of the content, business plan, other contributors, comments, and tone of the HuffPo for years with impunity, but now it is apparently personal?) Anyway in retaliation we're going to retroactively unpublish all the times Balk mentioned Rachel Sklar's rack. [HuffPo]

    4:28 PM on Mon Oct 13 2008
    By Pareene
    4,261 views, 60 comments

    Most discussed Chocolate Sex Bunny: Wow Gawker, ya'll got served! Very catty move Arianna! Rawr! more »