The Final Insult to Arianna Huffington's Failed Journalism Experiment

[BonnieJW]

Source: Gawker



The Huffington Post Investigative Fund, Arianna Huffington's failed attempt at nonprofit journalism, was taken over by the Center for Public Integrity. Now the Center for Public Integrity has been taken over by a right-wing hack. Ha-ha!

The Huffington Post Investigative Fund couldn't make it on its own, so it merged with the older and more established Center for Public Integrity last month, which was basically an acknowledgment that Huffington's grand plans and ambitions to "save" journalism amounted to little more than a way to get free copy for her for-profit web site.

And now the Center for Public Integrity, having swallowed her dream, has named former Washington Times editor John Solomon as its executive editor. Solomon, who's been a dogged investigative reporter for the Associated Press and the Washington Post, has long been a bete noire for the left: Media Matters has called him a "frequent purveyor of conservative misinformation" with a "history of distortion"; ThinkProgress calls him a "shoddy" reporter, and Talking Points Memo said his pursuit of Harry Reid for a variety of purported ethical lapses in a series AP stories relied on "key distortions and omissions."

Anyway, now he runs this beloved thing that Arianna Huffington started. For the record, Solomon has produced some good work, and he sought to professionalize the fetid swamp that is the Washington Times, and anyone who covers politicians aggressively will end up getting criticized by partisans. Still, anyone who agrees to put their name atop the Washington Times has earned the title "right wing hack" in spades.


Read more: http://gawker.com/5681621/the-final-insult-to-arianna-huffingtons-failed-journalism-experiment

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This is truly sickening.

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. Wow...uber-fail

Nice job, Huffington Post.

:sarcasm:

[trud]

5. You're blaming

Arianna for trying?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. I will give John Solomon credit for one thing.

He took the scare quotes off the word "marriage" whenever the Washington Times mentioned gay marriage. Now that he is gone from the Times, the scare quotes are back.

Just Like Old Times at the Washington Times?

Moon finally fixed on John Solomon, then a Washington Post reporter, to succeed Pruden. While many in the newsroom were relieved to be free of Coombs’ “redneck” sensibilities, the honeymoon was short-lived, this time for run-of-the-mill industry reasons. Wooed for what was believed to be a much cushier-than-usual compensation package—the editorial page editor under Solomon made $225,000 a year, plus a $5,000 signing bonus, according to a wrongful termination lawsuit he would later file—Solomon’s first two orders of business involved axing 30 reporters and ordering those who remained to double Internet traffic. The larger change was one of worldview: where Pruden and Coombs had always counseled the staff to see the Times as an “alternative voice” to the Post, as opposed to a direct competitor, Solomon said he saw the Times as the “Wall Street Journal of politics”—which reporters say meant in practice that he wanted the conservative ideology reserved for the editorial pages, while the reporting staff was instructed to emulate Politico.

“There were multiple days where it would be 6 in the morning or 10 at night and Solomon would send a Politico story to a reporter and instruct him or her to ‘match’ it,” says one reporter. As much as the newsroom might have felt liberated from Coombs’ style rules (in which illegal immigrants were “aliens” and “marriage” was in scare quotes whenever it was prefaced by “gay”), they did not feel particularly liberated in other respects. Expensive redesigns of both the Times website and the print edition that left neither looking much better—or different—took a toll on morale as well.

[w4rma]

3. Someone screwed up. (nt)

[SpiralHawk]

4. Another fudge-factor RepubliMoonie (R) propaganda pimp

Republicons really do luv them their so-called 'Second Coming of Jesus' Rev. Moon (RepubliCorp, Inc.).

Real peculiar. Real damn peculiar.

[regnaD kciN]

6. It shouldn't make much of a difference...

...I mean, just like the Moonie Times, HuffPost is devoted to bashing Obama at every possible opportunity.

[Tempest]

7. Bullshit

As an avid reader of HuffingtonPost there is no devotion to bashing Obama.

Unless you believe well deserved criticism of Obama, like for his stance on DADT is considered bashing.

[starroute]

8. Solomon tried to paper over the US Attorney scandal

See the thread from last year at http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6280943

[Mosaic]

9. HP's headlines and stories

Often, but not always, have a right wing tilt to them. I rarely go there anymore getting fed up with their obvious bias and trolls. Thanks for the info, it explains why the site has greatly decreased in quality. It was great while it lasted.