Arianna Huffington Lays Off 12,000 Citizen Journalists, Hires Godson

Two of the hottest 2008 presidential campaign scoops belonged to the Huffington Post's Off the Bus. Arianna Huffington let the citizen journalism project stagnate, then gave it to her godson. More »

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 »

Arianna's Most Tortured Attendants

We asked, earlier this week, if "editors are 'retards' and servants to Arianna" Huffington, subject of an all-too-squishy New Yorker profile this week. After hearing from still more Huffington Post insiders, it would seem the answer is a resounding "yes." And an obvious "yes" to those who have come to appreciate that the ambitious divorcée draws few boundaries between her own professional and personal lives, working manically, phoning and emailing editors in the middle of the night, obsessively arranging the order of stories on HuffPo's front page and in its various sections, and hollering at her staff over an intercom in her Brentwood mansion even while she has her nails done. The only clear line, it seems, is between the smart, charming image Huffington projects to her celebrity friends and the world at large and the rather nastier and more careless Arianna seen inside HuffPo. More »

Are Editors 'Retards' And Servants To Arianna?

The New Yorker's big Arianna Huffington profile may have been a letdown, with very little dirt on the politics or business of the Huffington Post, as we said yesterday. And, granted, it also failed to establish that the HuffPo publisher is a "cutthroat boss," as the Post hinted it would. But those who have spent time in Huffington's orbit seemed determined to have their say. And so it is that we have come to understand more clearly Huffington's seemingly strange remark that " a lot of people who came to the office wanted to be writers" at HuffPo but left because "the jobs are administrative." That quote left one to wonder if people signed up to be Arianna's administrative assistants and were upset because they couldn't get bylines. But no. People signed up to be editors, we hear, and were upset because they were asked to do the work of household assistants. More »

The Missing Dirt On Arianna Huffington

The New Yorker published its profile of Arianna Huffington. Though disappointingly far from the juicy takedown we hoped for, it does contain a few interesting nuggets. We learn, for example, that the Republican-divorcée-turned-internet-publisher bizarrely "hides" all three of her BlackBerrys in her bathroom at night, even though she lives only with a housekeeper and her two daughters. Her gay ex-husband Michael Huffington elaborates on how she knew of his interest in men before their marriage, saying, "in my Houston town house I sat down with her and told her that I had dated women and men so that she would be aware of it." And Huffington sounds downright proud of her lack of long-term friendships, saying, "I metabolize experiences fast." But there's so much missing, so much that should be in this 14-page story, starting first with how she runs the Huffington Post — would any male mogul be profiled at such length with so little said about how he runs his business? — and continuing through to juicer questions about her dating life and cultlike religious guru. A few specifics: More »