Just last summer the Huffington Post was taking flack for barely paying any of its writers. Now a spokesman claims it is paying 70 full-time journalists. Seriously?

"HuffPost has over 70 full-time writers, reporters, and editors who are paid," Huffington Post flack Mario Ruiz told Time Out Chicago, responding to a local imbroglio involving Arianna Huffington's online newspaper. That sounds amazingly high to our ears. Anyone know how HuffPo arrived at this figure? Get in touch. We're assuming it's not just Jason Linkins, Sam Stein, Dan Froomkin, Nico Pitney and 66 celebrity children editing John Cusack.