Huffington Post Surprises many with Merger Announcement by Markus Noé – February 8, 2011 – 12/14

Ottawa ON – Since May of 2005 the Huffington Post has been a sanctuary where lefties of the U.S gathered to find out about the news of the day, as well as comment on it. In a lot of ways the Huffington Post paved the way for this new breed of journalism we now see everywhere. The co-founders of the website Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer never even tried to hide the bias in there news blogs, which was once a career ending move by any journalist.
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At one time a news report only contained the basic facts and it was a golden rule for the reporter to remain detached from the story. The Huffington post bloggers threw this rule right out the window. Every story on its website not only gives you the facts but the writer’s usually leftist or democratic point of view along with it.
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If you can think back to the 2008 presidential election I think a Barack Obama’s picture along with any story was a daily headline. They made it clear who they wanted to win and who they didn’t and gave very elaborate explanations why. This was really unprecedented that a news organization blatantly and unapologetically backed one candidate over another.
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The image of the site became that of an independent, uncensored liberal, new age newspaper.   This is why shock was the initial reaction of many loyal Post fans when they found out that their beloved site merged with media giant AOL. The deal was for a reported $315 million dollars. This move in a traditional sense feels like a sell out, and has many wondering if being in business with a corporation as big as AOL will affect the content.
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However Arianna Huffington blogged today on her site that this was a very positive move for her company.  Huffington boasted about how much a partnership with AOL will help the Post deliver its news to a much wider audience and in a much faster and efficient way.
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On the other side of this deal one has to look at AOL’s motives. Which as of late have been fairly easy to figure out. This is a company in which its traditional business plan has become obsolete over time, and therefore they have been losing large sums of money.  In an attempt to remain as one of the world’s largest media corporations they have been buying up as many digital companies as possible. The variety of these digital media companies is causing some business executives to dub AOL’s moves as a schizophrenic media strategy.
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What does this merger with AOL and the Huffington Post signal? Is this the end of an era, or is this its continuation to a bigger and better soap box.  To read more of what Arianna Huffington had to say in her blog today got to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.
markus.noe@live.com
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You can also follow me on twitter @markustweets21
Best WesternEOTB

1 Comment

  1. One of the best stories yet posted by Mr. Noe on the Cornwall Free News – I call this fair and balanced reporting, if I may borrow the phrase!

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