Private Equity/Entrepreneurship

"It helps that Ms Huffington’s new media bet is coming good: the left-leaning HuffingtonPost.com website she founded in 2005 is one of the most popular political blogs, with about 4m unique users a month. Although its focus is on linking to other content, not original reporting, in April, a HuffingtonPost reporter scooped the mainstream media, recording Barack Obama at a fundraiser noting that “bitter” poor Americans clung to guns and religion – a remark that has haunted him ever since.

This week’s Democratic convention offered further proof of the rise of bloggers in general, and Ms Huffington in particular. An oddity at the 2004 convention, this time accredited bloggers had an 8,000 sq ft facility sponsored by Google and dubbed The Big Tent. Hundreds were gathered there, “building progressive ideas”, as one put it. Ms Huffington, though, was the most recognisable face of the new medium. Her promotional genius was evident in The HuffPost Oasis, a mini-spa offering yoga, massages and facials. “It’s dramatically different than it was in 2004 because right now this distinction between traditional media and new media and bloggers has been completely blurred,” Ms Huffington said on Wednesday from a private jet somewhere between Denver and New York."

Source: Extract from article linked to above

Some reading by R. Skidelsky:

Project Syndicate: The Press versus Privacy by Robert Skidelsky