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January 20, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Interview: Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post
Beltway Blogroll: Tell me briefly about the goals of The Huffington Post and how they have changed since it started.
Arianna Huffington: Ever since college, I've always enjoyed bringing together people from many different parts of my life and facilitating interesting conversations. These conversations have taken place around dinner tables, or at book parties, or on hikes with disparate groups of friends. With The Huffington Post, the idea was to take those conversations -- about politics and books and art and music and food and sex -- and bring them into cyberspace, creating a one-stop shopping site for news and opinion, with an attitude, in real time.
For me, the site's defining moment took place in July, just two months after we launched, when the bombing happened in London. Several of our top bloggers like Simon Jenkins, the former editor of the Sunday Times, were blogging about what was happening. I remember having my morning coffee and reading my copy of The New York Times, which had a front-page article on London winning its bid to host the Olympics. It was one of those moments that showed us what we could accomplish because with daily newspapers, you have the sense that you're reading yesterday’s news.
BB: Who in Washington reads the blog? Lawmakers and other policymakers? Lobbyists? Journalists? Other opinion leaders? What kind of feedback do you get from them?
AH: Judging by the feedback we're getting, which ranges from requests to blog to news tips for us to use on the site, it's read widely by all these groups.
BB: You have had some success in getting lawmakers to post occasional entries. Why do they do so? Do you recruit them to post, or do they approach you? Have you approached lawmakers who are not interested? If so, why do you think they resist? And why do you think more lawmakers in general aren't blogging?
AH: It's a long list, actually (see below) and we're adding new contributors every day. I'm told by many of our busy bloggers that they often have a strong take on the news but don't always have the time to put together a New York Times op-ed or put on makeup and drive to the CNN studio but, with us, they can dash out their thoughts in the more informal, conversational style of blogging. They can blog a thought they have, a reaction to something that is happening. And the beauty of blogging is that your post doesn't have to have a beginning, a middle and an end. You put a thought out there. Others respond. You start a conversation, and you can get on with the rest of your life.
Another attraction is the exposure our site provides. Many in the media, as well as many opinion makers, lawmakers and their staff, have our site bookmarked. And our partnership with Yahoo News means that every day 10 of our blogs get in front of millions more eyeballs.
Here is a list alphabetically of who has blogged so far:
Sen. Evan Bayh
Rep. John Conyers
Gov. Jon Corzine
Sen. Russ Feingold
Rep. Barney Frank
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
Sen. Edward Kennedy
Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Rep. Ed Markey
Rep. Jim McDermott
Rep. George Miller
Rep. John Murtha
Rep. Major Owens
Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Rep. Ted Poe
Rep. Charles Rangel
Rep. Bernie Sanders
Rep. Jan Schakowsky
Rep. Louise Slaughter
Rep. Hilda Solis
Rep. Ellen Tauscher
Rep. John Tierney
Rep. Diane Watson
Rep. Henry Waxman
[Editor's note: All but two on the list, Texas Republican Poe and Vermont indepenent Sanders, are Democrats, and Sanders caucuses with House Democrats.]
BB: On the policy front, how has the blog helped shape the debate over certain issues? Please provide some specific examples of success or failure, if you can think of them.
AH: Blogging has a kind of relentlessness that was never available to me as a columnist. When I started blogging in July about Judy Miller and The New York Times -- I haven't counted how many blogs I've posted -- it was something I never could have done as a columnist. My editors would have said, "Oh, you are writing about Judy Miller and The New York Times again? You wrote about her last month."
You have many stories that die on the front page of The New York Times. Big stories are covered but then forgotten. There isn't enough follow-up, and the greatness of the blogosphere is that there is a lot of follow-up. A story is covered and re-covered and re-covered until you break through the static of our 500-channel universe. And that is how you can actually begin to bring about change and capture the public's imagination.
While the mainstream media suffers from attention deficit disorder -- they cover a story and they move on -- bloggers stay with the story. That's one great service we provide.
The only reason we were able to take the lead on some very important stories like Judy Miller and Bob Woodward [of The Washington Post] was that we were there early and stayed on them and linked to other stories and to other blogs, and they linked to us, and we linked back to them.
For example, I first wrote about Bob Woodward on Nov. 16 but then did a more thorough take on the story on Nov. 28. Then Nora Ephron wrote a blog on him that gained a tremendous amount of traction, including being mentioned in Frank Rich's column and being central to Jay Rosen's summing up on the story. Her previous post on Mark Felt was also picked up everywhere, from the AP to Kausfiles. The same thing happened when Norman Mailer blogged about the Koran getting flushed down the toilet. And Lawrence O'Donnell broke the story that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source [for Time magazine] in a posting on our site in early July.
BB: In general, tell me what you think of the ability of the blogosphere to influence public policy. How powerful are blogs in policy circles these days, and why? What do you expect of them in that sense for the future?
AH: I wrote about the power of bloggers as far back as 2002, when I praised Glenn Reynolds for the amazing job he did by bringing to the public's attention Trent Lott's comments at that famous birthday lunch [for Strom Thurmond]. They were ignored by the mainstream media until Glenn wrote about it, then others like Josh Marshall, Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus developed the story, eventually succeeding in moving it out of the shadows into the political spotlight. So that was really the first moment when we saw the power of the blogosphere. and it's only been growing since.
And it's brought more accountability to the mainstream media. Dan Rather, Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Viveca Novak, the disastrous pre-war media coverage on [weapons of mass destruction] -- all of these stories would not have gotten the traction they did without the blogosphere.
BB: As blogs gain influence, will policymakers try to co-opt the technology to achieve their goals?
AH: Perhaps, but there is something really authentic about blogging. It's very transparent, and you can't fake it.
BB: Some people have said blogs contribute to political divisiveness in America. Do you agree? Why or why not?
AH: I believe the exact opposite. Blogging pulls people together. I truly love the intimacy of the medium. You're much more intimate when you're writing a blog than when you're writing a column, let alone a book. The conversational nature of it. The fact that you draw people in. You don't just write about politics. You write about yourself. You write about things you care about beyond politics.
I just finished reading the type script of Glenn Reynolds' "An Army of Davids: How Markets & Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths." We're supposed to be on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but I agreed with so much in the book, especially about the power that blogging and the new technology have given to the individual to take on big media, big government and the status quo.
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» Blogs and Political Influence from TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime
Danny Glover has a three part series in the National Journal (available free) on the rise of political blogs and their influence. It really covers the whole spectrum, and I recommend reading all three parts including the interviews with Arianna... [Read More]
Tracked on January 20, 2006 12:57 PM
