huffpo

Buried: McCain Lobs Ultimate Insult At 'Times'

Pareene · 09/24/08 05:04PM

Haha we were going to write about this and then John McCain flew back to Washington DC to solve this economic crisis himself. Before that happened? People were talking about how either John McCain lied to us about his campaign manager's link to Freddie Mac, or that campaign manager lied to John McCain about those ties, or both. How to respond to that charge? Hah. They didn't really know! Twice today—twice—McCain surrogates responded not by denying any of it, but rather by... comparing the New York Times to the Huffington Post. Ok, what? Nancy Pfotenhauer tried this line first on MSNBC this afternoon. Then spokesman Michael Goldfarb tried it later in an press release. That's right, they are saying you can't believe the Times because it's just like the stupid HuffPo with its Nora Ephron blogs and so on. What? Does this argument resonate with anyone who doesn't live online?? Man, the Washington Post is like the "Pink is the New Blog" of newspapers, right?? That MSNBC is pretty much the MediaBistro of television! Nonsensical zing! One understands why they decided to quickly shift gears this afternoon.

HuffPo Not For Sale! (Hint Hint)

Pareene · 08/27/08 12:35PM

The Huffington Post is decidedly not for sale, site founder Arianna Huffington announced yesterday in Denver. That means, most likely, that they still can't find any buyer willing to pony up anything close to that $200 million figure that got leaked to the Times. This year, the hard-working HuffPoors broke a couple political stories that decidedly altered the campaign, expanded into another city, and launched lifestyle sections with great fanfare, but let's be honest with ourselves: despite their fantastic skill with PR (thanks to Arianna's charm and moneyman Ken Lerer's experience working the press), the HuffPo is still not worth the paper it's not printed on. Click to viewHere are the two interpretations of The Huffington Post that Arianna and company would like you to forget: "left-wing Drudge Report" and "unedited celebrity Livejournal." The increasingly bloated HuffPo still is mostly an unhealthy mixture of those two things, of course, but their ambitions are higher. They have to be, to justify that ridiculous internal valuation. Hence HuffPo Chicago! And, more importantly, HuffPo Living, full of bullshit local-news quality health stories, "how to beat workplace stress" listicles (or often worse: links to those listicles posted elsewhere), alternative medicine quack-bloggers, and other "grab the apolitical old women" content. (To be fair, this shit does fit in well with Arianna's moony guru-filled California lifestyle, just as the media and political sections compliment her strident populism and personal hatred of the establishment press.) And with entertainment and style sections, HuffPo now calls itself "The Internet Newspaper." Real newspapers across the nation spiral into bankruptcy, but HuffPo's overhead costs are much lower, what with not paying most of their contributors. And also what with not having any original reporting. The site is still another damn aggregator, curating and linking real work done by traditional newsgatherers. With insane raving commenters, of course. And "blogs" from Nora Ephron. [Three years later and they still call each "post" a "blog." This still drives us insane.] This is the point L.A. Times media writer James Rainey makes in his slightly bitter piece on Arianna and the site. "I confess I'm as charmed and amused by the beguiling Ms. H as anyone," he says, "but also slightly queasy about whether her Huffington Post will ever offer original content and reporting that lives up to the hype and pretty packaging." What, you're not happy with featured content like "One Millenial Speaks Out: Why I'm Enrolling in Culinary School"? [Ed. note: we wuz wrong.] But, you know, they're still working on that whole original content that will make their site actually worth what they'd like to cash out thing!

The Best HuffPo Blast Email Ever

Pareene · 08/06/08 04:50PM

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Bill O'Reilly, Arianna Huffington Brought Together By Death

Hamilton Nolan · 07/15/08 01:56PM

Nonpartisan journalist Bill O'Reilly is a man who calls em how he sees em, and that means that he's not afraid to give credit to the liberal lie-mongering site HuffPo when credit is due. When former Bush flack Tony Snow died last weekend, the AP ran an obit that was not 100% positive. Even worse, "The LA Times website allowed loons to post vile things about Tony Snow." O'Reilly condemns these examples of factual reporting and free speech, respectively; but he actually praises foreign-born socialist Arianna Huffington for scrubbing her site of all Snow smears. Truly a bipartisan lovefest! Watch the clip of what happens when you look up "Fairness" in the dictionary, below:

Happy Birthday Anderson Cooper!! :D

Pareene · 06/03/08 03:35PM

The most beautiful cable news anchor of all time ever is 41 years old today. Maybe his mom will come by the studio to sing to him? Or maybe mean Mrs. Clinton will ruin his party by making him report "news." Sigh. [HuffPo] (After the jump, we'll share some birthday wishes for Anderson from HuffPo commenters.)

McCain Healthy, Barack Obama Doomed

Pareene · 05/23/08 10:53AM

John McCain is in mostly good health. He's had melanoma three times but now "appears cancer-free." He's arthritic and takes cholesterol meds and has precancerous lesions removed periodically, but his heart is super-strong! He also has vertigo. The cancer probably won't come back within the next 8 years, though there's a chance of it. Also, "aides said McCain has had no mental evaluations in the past eight years and none was included in the documents." Meanwhile, have you heard that Barack Obama is terribly unhealthy? It's true, some guy at HuffPo says the Senator is totally unfit for duty.

John McCain: Bullshit Artist

Pareene · 05/06/08 12:09PM

Yesterday, Arianna Huffington revealed that John McCain told her in 2000 that he didn't vote for George W. Bush. Which we believe. We believe that he told her this, anyway. Who knows if it was true then, or now. But McCain denied it, right away. Which leads Arianna to list all the documented times he's blatantly lied about saying something so far this campaign season. A fun little list! Of course it shows why McCain felt comfortable telling Arianna Huffington that he didn't vote for Bush in 2000. And also why he's the most popular guest in Daily Show history!

Breaking News From a Dinner Party 8 Years Ago

Pareene · 05/05/08 04:02PM

Arianna Huffington used to be a Republican. She was BFF with Newt Gingrich and everything! Then she switched sides and now she runs a super-liberal website where she occasionally breaks news like this: John McCain didn't vote for George Bush in 2000. But now he's a total Republican sell-out! This disappoints Arianna greatly, because she used to respect him, back when he was a maverick. We're pretty sure he's always been a mean, corrupt old bastard, but whatevs. He's probably disappointed in her, too! [HuffPo]

Arianna Huffington Is the Most Popular Lady on the Internet

Pareene · 05/05/08 01:35PM

The May W features an Arianna Huffington interview in which she reveals how influential and important she is. She lunched with David Geffen and Ari Emanuel calls her every day! Also she's all over the TV pimping her new book, which is about how much she dislikes Tim Russert. And she's single! This might be a good time to hook up with her, if you can make it stick: she's got about a six-month window to unload HuffPo for a very large amount of money. Traffic is huge at the moment, but will the new lifestyle content make up for the post-election downturn? Probably not! And as our good friend Nick Denton once blaaaahhgged, advertisers are terrified of political content. Even when it's by Alec Baldwin and Nora Ephron! [W via LAObserved]

Arianna Huffington Banned From Third-Place Cable News Network

Pareene · 04/30/08 11:48AM

Arianna Huffington has reportedly been BANISHED by NBC news—including MSNBC!—because her new book savagely criticizes NBC political honcho Tim Russert. Keith Kelly reports: "Sources said that Huffington was at a dinner in the home of Barbara Walters on Tuesday night when she heard that word had come down from on high that she no longer appear on NBC or MSNBC, where talk show hosts Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough and Dan Abrams were all interested in booking her." NBC's Phil Griffin claims to not know anything about it. We'd argue Arianna was just playing up a rumor she heard to publicize her book, but Griffin adds: "I know some people have issues with her as a guest, but it has nothing to do with the book." Say what you will about Arianna, but she's generally a great guest. So we'll take that as a confirmation. Arianna used to appear on Olbermann's and Dan Abrhams' shows fairly regularly, but her media schedule shows no forthcoming appearances. [NYP]

Pundit Lapels Shockingly Bare

Pareene · 04/23/08 01:18PM

Doesn't anyone wear flag pins anymore? HuffPo's Rachel Sklar, who carries an actual maple leaf pinned to a beaver pelt with her at all times, pitted the cable news network talking heads against each other in a brutal MS Paint collage battle, and discovered that while people get all up-in-arms about Barack Obama not wearing his little American flag pin, no one else does anymore either. Except Brit Hume, Neil Cavuto, Karl Rove, and Lou Dobbs. The last defenders of patriotism! Everyone else in America is too bitter.

No Respect, Proper Attribution for Sad Citizen Journalists

Pareene · 04/14/08 04:31PM

A couple days ago, Huffington Post's "OffTheBus," a political blog inside the political blog that is the rest of HuffPo, broke a story: Barack Obama thinks Americans are bitter! You have hopefully heard about this by now, as it was all over the TV all weekend, this whole "Barack Obama thinks economic troubles color people's world views" crisis, so we will spare you the details and instead point and laugh at OffTheBus's poor Jay Rosen detailing all the varied and confused ways every single media outlet on Earth refused to give them credit for a legitimate scoop. "Mayhill Fowler's Obama quotes were shown on screen, but Meet the Press made no mention of her, or OffTheBus, or the Huffington Post." Hah. It gets more convoluted from there because NO ONE UNDERSTANDS INTERNET STUFF.

SpitzerGate Leads Ari Emanuel To Question Where All The Honest Politicians Have Gone

Seth Abramovitch · 03/12/08 07:20PM

It's been too long since we've cuddled up with HuffPo powerblogger Ari Emanuel: The dissolution of his Ari's Frustration of the Day column by no stretch of the imagination suggests the Endeavor partner has suddenly developed a Zen-like acceptance of his rightful, bitch-hugging place in the universe. On the contrary, it seems that certain lurid acts committed by state-level politicians have nudged the bug that's taken permanent residence inside his hindquarters further up the Ari Coast than ever before:

Arianna Huffington: Nazi

Pareene · 02/28/08 03:25PM

Bill O'Reilly finally asks the question we've all been thinking: "What's the difference between the KKK and Arianna Huffington? What's the difference?" He's right! Arianna has her name attached to a website that allows anonymous commenters to write mean things about Nancy Reagan—how, exactly, is that any different from killing Medgar Evers? Exactly. [Crooks & Liars]

Internets, Gays, Celebrities: Three Things That Will Destroy Your Family This Valentine's Day

Pareene · 02/13/08 12:29PM

The American Family is Under Attack. Homosexuals, liberals, Europeans, celebrities, immigrants—all seek to undermine our nation's moral code. Marriage, parenthood, even chaste teenage courtship are embattled and probably doomed. Movies about children having children out of wedlock, gays trying to marry gays, and wife-stealing media moguls are just symptoms of a deeper moral rot in our culture. Here, we present to you, exclusively, three of the greatest dangers to your family unit that you are sure to face this February—and beyond!