E-mail a friendArianna Huffington
airdate December 9, 2008
Named one of Washington's most influential commentators by Newsweek, Arianna Huffington started her political life as the darling of the right. She now describes herself as a progressive populist. She does political commentary and has written numerous books, including the new release, The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging. She's also co-founder and editor in chief of the news and opinion Website, The Huffington Post, and co-host of Left, Right & Center, a public radio political roundtable program.
The Huffington Post founder explains why blogs are important and have become a sensation. (3:34)
Full interview. (13:18)
Arianna Huffington
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Arianna Huffington back to this program. The influential columnist, radio host, and author is, of course, the co-founder and driving force behind The Huffington Post. Her latest project is a unique tutorial on the world of blogging called "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging." Arianna, as always, a delight to see you.
Arianna Huffington: Thank you, Tavis, great to be with you.
Tavis: You all right? Good to see you. Let me start by asking a very simple question - this is a word that we are so accustomed now in this new media world of throwing around all the time, but I get the sense, as I talk to people of a different generation sometimes, and even this generation, they really don't know what blogging is. It's a word we hear all the time, but what's your lay person's definition of blogging?
Huffington: Well, literally, it means a web log, and it basically means keeping track of your thoughts, of events, of whatever interests you, online. And the great thing about blogging and why it has become such a sensation is that it is very conversational, it is intimate, it is immediate - it's more the way you would email a friend than the way you would write a polished op-ed.
So whatever thoughts you have, whatever you love, whatever outrages you, you can put it in words immediately and see it online and others can respond.
Tavis: Without casting aspersion on you or anybody else in the blogosphere - that's the environment, the community where they hang out; it's called the blogosphere - without casting -
Huffington: You hang out there, too. You have blog.
Tavis: I do. But without casting aspersion on those of us who do this blogging thing, blogs are opinions, and opinions, as we know, are like noses - everybody has one. Why do we really care what anybody and everybody has to say about everything? Why do we care?
Huffington: Blogs are opinions and blogs are also based on fact. Blogs are reporting, blogs are everything. Anything that appears online can be done in the form of a blog. What first got me fascinated and wanted me to start something online that was a collective blog like The Huffington Post, and I write about that in the book, was when Trent Lott made a comment at the lunch - a birthday lunch for Strom Thurmond that was clearly racist.
And yet the mainstream media moved on and paid no attention to it. But certain bloggers, like Josh Marshall, like Glen Reynolds, like (unintelligible) stayed on it and kept writing about it and writing about it and developing the story and bringing in more information about Trent Lott's past associations with other racist groups.
And the bottom line was that by the end of this process, Trent Lott had to resign. So for me, what was fascinating was that anybody who the passion and a voice and an Internet connection and a laptop can now actually influence the course of events. And that is as major a breakthrough as Thomas Payne.
Tavis: Speaking of influencing the course of events, I read a number of papers, as do you, every single day before I get moving, and I always smile when I'm reading "The New York Times," especially, and I see "The New York Times" quoting The Huffington Post and I say, "Arianna's having a good day, 'The New York Times' is quoting her."
What do you make of the fact that blogs now are the place where news is broken and that the traditional mainstream media outlets end up quoting the blogosphere?
Huffington: Well, there's a convergence. Increasingly, mainstream media have more and more blogs. More and more of their traditional journalists are blogging. And we, in the online media, are adopting the best part of traditional journalism. And what is that best part? Accuracy, fact checking, fairness. And I'm a blogging evangelist, you know that, Tavis. You and I have been friends for a long time. I never see you without saying, "Tavis, you must blog about that."
So in a way, this book is really our saying to everybody, it's so easy to blog. Once you have something you're passionate about, something you care about that you want to communicate to the world, you can either do it on The Huffington Post, you can either do it on any of the existing blogs, or you can buy your own blogging software - which is free, you don't really have to buy it. You just download it.
So this is really a new way to communicate, and especially during these terrible times that we are in now, which everybody says they're going to get worse before they get better. Being able to blog the meltdown is also therapeutic. It's a way to stay connected and to deal with the isolation of losing a job or having to make the kind of cuts in our own lives that are so painful.
Tavis: There are a lot of people on your site, many of them are contributors to this book - Nora Ephron, Harry Scherer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Gary Hart, John Ridley - a number of folk who are well-known who blog on your site regularly. And yet, to the point you're making now about this economic meltdown that we're in, I think I just read somewhere the other day that you guys have a new piece on your - a new opportunity on your site.
Huffington: A new funding opportunity, yes.
Tavis: Yeah, for everyday people to go on and express themselves about the -
Huffington: Yes. Well, two different things. One is that we got a significant amount of new funding that we are going to use to, among other things, create a fund for investigative journalism so that actually they can be both journalists who've been laid off and others who want to write about what's happening now. Report on what's happening. And we'll be able to fund this.
But also, we've launched something that we are calling Blogging the Meltdown, and we've had hundreds of amazing responses from people who have lost jobs, whose healthcare package has gone. One of the most moving for me was a woman who is 62, lives in Maryland, and she said all her life she'd made all the sacrifices in terms of buying an extra coat or buying something extra for herself in order to be able to have a safe retirement, and now her 401k has basically evaporated, so all that sacrifice was for naught.
Tavis: You're right about the fact that the blogosphere can do some pretty wonderful and amazing things in the world that we live today, and the instant nature of being able to get your point of view out there so quickly is a beautiful thing. The flip side of that is that not everybody in the blogosphere fact-checks, and one of the problems I have with it, quite frankly, is that it's not connected to a lie detector.
And when stuff goes out - I was just reading a survey the other day that suggests that 58 percent of people who are regularly hanging out in the blogosphere believe what they read in the blogosphere. That's a dangerous think when, again, people are on there expressing their opinions. There is no fact-checking, oftentimes, that goes with it. It's, again, not connected to a lie detector test. And so what gets said about X, Y, or Z or about person X, Y, or Z is just out there and it gets repeated over and over and over again. I don't like that.
Huffington: I agree, and that's a problem that has existed before the blogosphere and continues to exist. Remember -
Tavis: But it's getting worse with everybody blogging now.
Huffington: Well, there is one good thing, though, about blogging, which is that any mistake, any lie, can also be instantly corrected, and we saw that happening during the last election. We saw how many rumors there were, how many lies about Barack Obama - he's a Muslim, he's a terrorist, he's a Marxist. And all that was also instantly corrected.
So in a sense, the fear-mongering that was attempted in the last election did not work partly because of the blogosphere and the Internet. That was (unintelligible) not just correcting the lies, but continuing to post the corrections and post them again and again, even after the mainstream media had moved on.
Tavis: Talk to me, to your point now about Barack Obama, assess for me how brilliantly they used the Internet, how brilliantly they used the blogosphere in this campaign for the White House.
Huffington: Well, I say in the book that were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be about to be the 44th president of the United States, period, the end. The way the campaign used the Internet in terms of fundraising, in terms of organizing, in terms of galvanizing young people through texting, through email, was really unprecedented.
And what is exciting now is the possibility that they'll continue to use that list that they have amassed of over 10 million emails and over five million cell phone numbers to galvanize the same people who were instrumental in his election to help him govern during a very difficult time - during the time when he will need the public with him.
Tavis: What do you make of the fact, though, that some have argued that while it is supposed to be about we, the people - ostensibly, it's about us everyday people. On the other hand, when you ratchet up the hopes and dreams and expectations of a mass of people, starting with those in this blogosphere, who think that they ought to be connected, who think that they ought to be consulted, who think that they ought to be included in the decisions that you make, and you can't govern in the blogosphere that way, people get disappointed long-term.
Huffington: I think the blogosphere and the list that the Obama team has amassed is going to be very helpful as a countervailing force, because the lobbyists are still in Washington. There was a lot of talk against lobbyists during the election, but we know that they haven't disappeared.
So while Obama wants to pass a massive stimulus package, while he wants to change our energy policies, our healthcare policies, there's going to be an enormous amount of push-back from the traditional entrenched interests in Washington.
That's where the millions of people who've been galvanized around the country can actually be an incredibly powerful force in order to actually achieve all the goals that Barack Obama was elected to achieve.
Tavis: You talked a moment ago, Arianna, about the convergence, to use your word, of old media and new media. Help me understand how you read this. Yesterday, I read two stories I'm sure you saw - one of them, the Tribune Company filed bankruptcy, so the company that owns "The Chicago Tribune," the company that owns "The Los Angeles Times," files bankruptcy yesterday.
And then we had another story about "The New York Times. "The New York Times" had to borrow $225 million from the equity in the building that it's housed in in Manhattan to keep its operations afloat to get some short-term cash infusion in the company. So the venerable "New York Times" borrowing money from its own building to stay afloat, "The L.A. Times," "The Chicago Tribune," their holding company filing bankruptcy. Is it really a convergence, or is one of them going down?
Huffington: I still think it's a convergence. There is no question that this is a terrible time for traditional media that have legacy costs, that have printing costs, and at a time when advertising is going down dramatically. But I still believe that if traditional medial continues to improve and increase what they are doing online, they have great teams of people working there.
The journalism that they practice is still very important and I believe that it can continue to be a big part of our life, provided that they do more and more online.
Tavis: Where do you think - two questions. Where do you think the blogosphere is headed, number one, and number two, you give some pretty fundamental and basic advice in the book about how to join in the blog conversation for those persons who are intrigued by it.
Huffington: Well first of all, I want people to join because I believe the more voices we have, the more we democratize our culture and our politics, the better off we'll be - especially at a time when we have to come together. And I see blogging as a way to help us come together. There is nothing worse than losing a job or losing a home, and the tendency is to isolate.
And so blogging can help us during that time. At the same time that we are looking for another job, upgrading our skills, doing something for others - that's another thing; we talk a lot about service as something that is going to be more and more essential in the lean years ahead, but also blogging about that.
We have a new section on The Huffington Post that we're calling the living section, and part of that is called "The Giving Life," and we're asking people to blog about the things you are doing for others. Are they mentoring somebody, are they helping somebody find another place to live in?
All those things are going to become increasingly important at a time when it's no longer sufficient to just care for ourselves.
Tavis: Hard to find anything on the Internet that had as good a year in 2008 as The Huffington Post had - what a year they had. The new book, "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging," by the editors of The Huffington Post, and of course the namesake of that post is Arianna Huffington. Arianna, nice to see you as always, have a great holiday season.
Huffington: Thank you so much, Tavis.
Tavis: I'll see you in Washington, I assume -
Huffington: See you in Washington.
Tavis: - for the inauguration, yeah.
Back to December 9, 2008