Comments on: Arianna Huffington saves journalism

By: Loewenstein says newspapers are dying because they missed the story

Loewenstein says newspapers are dying because they missed the story — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:45:06 +0000

[...] view, it will not. Debates over “public trust” journalism are therefore essential. New models are already emerging. In fact, what we should be asking is whether the old models are adequate to sustain reporting in [...]

By: HuffPo distributing media one channel at a time « Media Matters

HuffPo distributing media one channel at a time « Media Matters — Tue, 04 May 2010 18:49:40 +0000

[...] eyebrows in the industry for many reasons. Guardian columnist Jeff Jarvis said that it showed how Huffington was saving journalism. He argued that the Investigative Fund was a testament to the sustainability 0f media not through pay [...]

By: What Passes for ‘Journalism’ At HuffPo Isn’t - Warner_Todd_Huston’s blog - RedState web01.prod.theplanet.eaglepub.com 174.120.27.221

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:05:21 +0000

[...] journalism” for its Iran coverage. Jeff Jarvis of The Guardian claims that Arianna is “saving journalism.” She was even just awarded the Fred Dressler Lifetime Achievement Award in journalism from [...]

By: What Passes for ‘Journalism’ At HuffPo Isn’t &laquo Publius Forum

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:59:45 +0000

By: StewartIII

StewartIII — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:44:04 +0000

What Passes for ‘Journalism’ At HuffPo Isn’t
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2009/07/02/what-passes-journalism-huffpo-isnt

By: Steve McNally - Musings of a New News Startup - Paying for Journalism; Bringing Experience to new platforms - True/Slant

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:19:17 +0000

[...] before the Senate, and is frequently asked how things will bein the “New Way.” Her views on journalism are regarded as [...]

By: ivan dylko

ivan dylko — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:53:04 +0000

The real problem, which neither Huff Post, nor other big foundations seem to be addressing is the “local” investigative journalism. Papers have played an important role on the local level – and as they go bankrupt, no one fills that vacuum as of right now. That’s the real danger and that should be the biggest concern for those concerned with the future of journalism and democracy.

By: Liebe Medienmacher | Grenzpfosten

Liebe Medienmacher | Grenzpfosten — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:54:56 +0000

[...] Die erdreisten sich tatsächlich, Euch funktionierende Beispiele zu zeigen [...]

By: We shouldn’t be grieving for the death of newspapers | Antony Loewenstein

We shouldn’t be grieving for the death of newspapers | Antony Loewenstein — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:32:20 +0000

[...] The question in the Freeman wasn’t so much a lack of resources to report the facts – after all, the story didn’t require overseas travel, as all the players were in the US – but a lack of will. Much of the debate about the crisis in old media (and news about the closure of institutions like the Boston Globe is certainly concerning) overly focuses on a belief that simply keeping newspapers alive will continue to guarantee democracy and transparency. In my view, it will not. Debates over “public trust” journalism are therefore essential. New models are already emerging. [...]

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:24:19 +0000

Actually I think what we’re just now waking up from is a long pipe dream of “common ground.” As @Danno remarked, “political and social bias in news reporting is both accepted and firmly established.” However I would go a step further and say that unbiased news has NEVER existed. People like Rupert Murdoch and William Randolph Hearst have held the puppet strings of mainstream media for quite some time now. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

By: Christian Jacobsen

Christian Jacobsen — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:08:43 +0000

If the Conservative Right is really so concerned that the financing of this foundation will skew the neutrality of the foundations’ investigative reporting, then the right should just donate a larger sum.

It’s pretty simple, really. The foundation started with 1.75 million. So put together a consortium of deep pockets on the right, and have them donate 2 million.

Then they have to either own up to the fact that they have been tilting at straw men (whining about funding sources), or they wholeheartedly support the investigative journalism of the foundation, regardless of the results of the investigations.

By: George Snell

George Snell — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:47:58 +0000

Jeff, I think you’re overstating it a bit. NPR and PBS in the United States have been doing non-profit investigative journalism for an awful long time – and doing it quite well. The Huffington Post is part of the problem with the news industry today – using content generated by others as the foundation for its own content creation – mostly reactionary and opinionated. That isn’t journalism. It’s punditry.

That’s not to say there isn’t a place for the Huffington Post, but let’s not confuse the content with that of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. And while I admire Arianna’s drive and enjoy reading the HuffPost – I take the content (and the opinions) with a grain of salt.

By: James

James — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:36:19 +0000

Your question of whether donors will influence coverage is a good one. It’s really no different from editors at news organizations. However, donors could also act like PBS, who gets a lot of donors but still has outstanding investigative journalism.

By: Danno

Danno — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:45:37 +0000

I’m not sure common ground ever existed, but the major news institutions today are transparently partisan. The idea that Arianna Huffington is funding a non-partisan, investigative reporting operation is as laughable as Rush Limbaugh doing the same.

What Jarvis and others fail to recognize is the shift to digital is only part of the changing news media landscape. Political and social bias in news reporting is both accepted and firmly established, and most consumers of news only frequent the sources that support their own ideology.

Let’s face it, unbiased news organizations no longer exist.

By: Andy Freeman

Andy Freeman — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:39:02 +0000

> Trying to define “clean money”: money without the obligation to generate a return on investment.

“obligation” is too strong. Expectation is about right.

However, the big problem is “return”. All money is spent with the expectation of a “return” so the question becomes “what kind of return is ‘clean’”.

By: Tish Grier

Tish Grier — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:54:42 +0000

Jeff…sounds like there’s a crowdsourcing component to the type of investigative journalism that HufPo wants to do. Having done some work in that arena, it’s a good thing to have and will certainly help. But I’m not sure that the small successes that have come about thru the use of crowdsourced content, including HufPo’s own Off-the-Bus should be counted as what is going to exactly “save” investigative journalism. It’s not that I don’t believe in the power of the community to create journalism–I do. But how the economy impacts people’s lives may make large-scale crowdsourcing of the parts of investigative journalism without some kind of reward for the contributors, tough to sustain. There has to be some pay-off for the contributors. I’d say to look less at Wikipedia and more at what a multitude of businesses are doing with crowdsourcing.

By: How do we ’save’ journalism? By entering the spirit of this new, post-capitalist age and making transparency our No1 goal. We have to leave the ‘era of sunlight’ behind us… » Out With A Bang

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:42:42 +0000

[...] http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/04/06/arianna-huffington-saves-journalism/ [...]

By: Alisa Bowman

Alisa Bowman — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:40:27 +0000

I agree with others who wrote that they basically felt kicked in the gut by the phrase “Arianna Huffington saves journalism.” The woman doesn’t pay her contributors a cent. Not a cent. I worked for a newspaper many years ago, and I did not get paid much. But at least I could earn a living. I don’t write for HuffPo on principle, and many of my freelance friends do the same. If she’s actually going to PAY journalists to investigate, that’s one thing. But I think this is just yet another way for a rich person to get richer, which is what’s wrong with our economy in the first place.

By: Detlef Cordes

Detlef Cordes — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:54:50 +0000

Trying to define “clean money”: money without the obligation to generate a return on investment. But: if that expected return would be “I want to know what really happened”?

If there exists a species like naked, unbiased fact, I would consider money invested into its presentation as “clean”. But OK, that species might well be “fairy dust”.

By: jon

jon — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:10:51 +0000

What about the report (Gawker… http://gawker.com/5199661/whos-ghost-writing-arianna-huffingtons-twitter) that she does not write her own Twitter tweets and Huffington Post columns. If true, is that the “new journalism”?

By: Look for the Signs- They are Everywhere | chrisbrogan.com

Look for the Signs- They are Everywhere | chrisbrogan.com — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:20:30 +0000

[...] Jarvis does it again. This time, he talks about how Arianna Huffington saves journalism. He’s not wrong. She is front and center of the mindset of people doing new, good, amazing [...]

By: jdoran

jdoran — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:29:30 +0000

Arianna Huffington is not saving Journalism, she is shifting ownership of it from public companies that pay people wages for performing the tasks of a journalist to the monied elite who can afford to do it for nothing — such as herself.
In much the same way that newspaper groups and the news wires contributed to their own commercial decline by making their material available for free online, Huffington has taken the process one step further and removed all economic value form journalism. I am a freelance with 15 years experience as a staffer on top international newspapers. I now make a living finding and breaking exclusive news stories and features (mainly for The Guardian by the way). I think this is the “investigative journalism” to which you refer. I like to call it reporting. Anyway, Huffington frequently copies great chunks of my work without any attribution. here is the latest one from Sunday — http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-welsh/elizabeth-warren-finally_b_183291.html
I complain to her about this, yet she continues to trade off material that cost me money to produce. If she continues putting reporters out of business in this way her well connected friends will having nothing to opine about, because they sure as hell have no idea how to actually break the news. I’ve discussed this with David Simon, creator of The Wire and former Baltimore Sun crime reporter who shares my view that this approach to journalism has reduced the value of reporting to a level where it is virtually worthless. Arianna Huffington is killing journalism.

By: Christopher Wink

Christopher Wink — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:49:40 +0000

Jeff:
I can understand your point about the Huffington Post coming to rescue of “investigative journalism,” but I’m a little uneasy about the site being the savior. With a business model that depends on unpaid contributors, I think something is lacking. As a young freelancer, I’m troubled by the prospect of for-profit entities squeezing citizen journalism and free submissions at the expense of professional work. The market dictates, yes, but in a time of unrest, folks are willing to give up more than they should, I think.
-cgw

By: Zywotkowitz

Zywotkowitz — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:28:50 +0000

there’s nothing stopping a more Conservative … group from doing the same thing.

Indeed. But then there is no common ground anymore … and it becomes trivially easy for a public figure to dismiss any type of investigative reporting as simply a partisan hitjob.

By: David Cohn

David Cohn — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:24:27 +0000

“Is there a danger of this sort of support—that donors will influence coverage? Perhaps.”

In working on Spot.Us I have been asked this question more times than I can shake a stick at.

And you know what…. I’m still not convinced it is a problem. I have so many responses I don’t know where to start. But the bottom line it comes down to this.

…. There is NO such thing as clean money.

You find me clean money… I’ll find you fairy dust and we will do a trade.

Money from advertising isn’t clean.
Even money from foundations isn’t clean.

The best we can do is be transparent.

By being transparent and making sure we are diverse in public money – we stand to have more accountable journalism than that which is supported by advertising (one big source of money and only semi-transparent).