Who is Arianna Huffington talking to about A New Way to Think About New Media?”
huffingtonpost.com: A New Way to Think About New Media: Arianna Huffington Talks to Toronto Marissa Bronfman Why would The Toronto Star newspaper be funding Arianna Huffington’s talk during Toronto Advertising Week; hadn’t she effectively killed newspapers with The Huffington Post? This initially puzzling relationship actually symbolizes Huffington’s new media message perfectly: we need to dispose of the crippling either/or dichotomies halting progress and focus instead on an enriched hybrid model that’s democratic, transparent, accessible and interactive. Dynamic, engaging and personable even from a podium, Huffington lay out the classic criticisms from new media naysayers with refreshing frankness and successfully rebutted their arguments with characteristic charm. Read more at the link below.
My Guardian column this week, under that headline, comes out of an interview I did with Huffington for the first edition of the Guardian Media Talk USA podcast (which you can listen to now; follow the link). The column got trimmed for print, so I’ll paste my draft after the jump. It has come to this: Arianna Huffington is saving journalism. In all the mourning and mewling over the impending death of newspapers, the oft-heard cry is that without them, there will be no investigative reporting, no one to dog the powerful. But now the indefatigable founder of The Huffington Post comes riding to the rescue with a new, not-for-profit arm to fund investigative journalism out of foundation and public donations. It starts with $1.75 million. “In the two biggest stories of our recent time—the war in Iraq and our financial meltdown—investigative journalism did not fulfill its mission,” Huffington told me in an interview for the inaugural Guardian Media Talk USA podcast. “We all have a real stake
