So Long and Thanks for All the Phish

Well, it’s been an interesting few months of weekly looks in The Huffington Post to say the least. They’ve had a few good moments, but have mainly picked on a wrong nerve in one way or another with their coverage of various events and topics. I have used this blog to air most of the frequent issues I’ve had with Ms. Arianna Huffington and her charges — as well as their few praiseworthy moments — so as we wrap it up, I’ll wait a minute before digging my blogger claws deep into their hide and start with what made me nod along in approval.

The Good

With the move of the print medium into the sphere of online, few have taken to the intricacies of that system better than The Huffington Post. Granted, they have only ever been an online entity, allowing them to grow in that petri dish from day one of their existence. In that development, nothing has been better recently than their integration of the online communities that arise from social media. Across the reaches of topics that the website covers on a daily basis, the site reaches out to readers to offer their opinions. Whether by Facebook, Twitter or the vast and intricate comments section that Huffington offers, thousands of people are willing to offer their opinions for the world to see. Huffington doesn’t just leave the chalk at the bottom of the board for others to pick up, they invite them to come to the front of the class and make their voice heard.

As I briefly mentioned before, they have their hands in cookie jars all across the spectrum. Though they don’t cover all of their “beats” well, they do seem to cover them all. This leads to some interesting (in a derogatory , your mother telling you that story of a week-long bender was interesting sense) stories popping up but also some interesting (here, the more traditional meaning) opinions cropping up all over the board. This attempt to be the online newspaper Da Vinci is admirable, and coupled with the communities they help foster show the strong case for the genius Dr. Jekyll of the website.

The Bad

Ahh but alas we arrive at the meat that fuels the beef. And it is not bad jokes. Where to begin, for Dr. Jekyll must always drink the potion the elicits the appearance of one Mr. Hyde from within. The existence of Huffington in solely and online format as well as its strong connection to social media proves to highlight the gag-inducing connection to a “click here!” culture. TNow, I am not here — and never have been out to — deny the necessity of the bottom line for The Huffington Post that comes from increased page views. In fact I will generally tip my cap to them in the sense that the model they have developed of integrating such disparate sections through many many many links seems to remarkably effective in driving traffic every which way while, importantly, keeping them on the main site they started on. My problem comes from the fact that they are essentially fishing the fertile waters of the internet for views that the content itself probably does not deserve.

It is in this that they start to bother my probably far too journalistically-snobby sense. They take to the age-old complaint of “why is the news always sad?” with a battle ax and some Elmer’s glue. Like taking the death of  Moammar Gaddafi and trying to inject humor into the central story line or the elections in the UK with questions about the viewers favorite Lady Gaga songs. There are people who will read these stories and they may deserve a part in the grand scheme of the moment, but Huffington is far to blase about putting these stories in places that discredit them and take away the perspective that goes with the news of the moment.

There are many other trivial complaints to be had, from the layout of the site to their inability to talk about their own issues — despite being all up in everybody else’s business. But all in all, I may have been a little harsh of  The Huffington Post. Even their diluting of news with comedy is really something that may bother me more than anyone else and, honestly, probably helps them fill the niche they are looking to occupy rather nicely. It is far from a perfect website and it might not be one that I will look to visit everyday now that our relationship has come to a close but whether it’s the latest on Justin Bieber’s baby or Alec Baldwin’s opinion on capital punishment, I just might find myself right bac face to face with The Huffington Post.

Breaking the News on Huffington: Obamacare, Dogs and Confused Republicans

I’ve torched The Huffington Post a decent amount lately for some of their editorial decisions, but I’m feeling a little bit nice today. Mainly in relation to the top story announcing that the Supreme Court would be ruling on Obamacare. A worthy top story as it has little to do with cute puppies or other such things. What makes the story on Huffington truly impressive is not the content of the article — it’s short (UPDATE: They changed to the AP story which more fleshed out) and taken from Reuters anyway — but the the way all of the multimedia content (such as a slideshow on the issue) and social media aspects are integrated into the story as a whole.

On the main page of the entire website a banner runs beneath the story with a live twitter feed of the discussion of the story that the user is allowed to scroll through. This is addition to a boisterous conversation in the comments section totaling nearly 2000 people long, some of which is surprisingly informed for online commentary.

One of the things that I found most interesting about the coverage of the breaking news story was the presence of a “Quick Read” option on the main page. Clicking on the quick read function gives you the lede of the story with the option to continue reading the entire story in its original location.

It also gives you links to stories that you would hope were related, but this is The Huffington Post. Related means a story about a dog and anytime Republicans through their hands up in confusion. No bias there. But I digress.

The optional pop-up window is a nice way to get a snapshot of the story (and probably extra page views for them) that is an interesting touch to the overall coverage. The community conversation that the website constantly tries to get going is on full display with the breaking news. The addition of the twitter feed is a particularly nice touch. As the “related articles” show, it is far from perfect. But with less time to dilute the story, Huffington shows that they can occasionally get the good parts of the story out there for all to talk about.

Bieber Fever: How the Huffington Post Put Me on the Cutting Edge of News I Didn’t Know Mattered So Much

I was forced to come to terms with my media consumption the other day. It happened in the most painful fashion possible. While talking with my girlfriend the other day, the topic of celebrity gossip came up. Thinking I was bringing up old news, I mentioned that Justin Bieber could possibly have a baby. To my utmost surprise, the response I got was simply, “WHAT!” Flabbergasted, and after much backtracking and justification, I had to admit to her and myself that I had indeed found about the alleged Bieber Baby first. How did such a thing happen?

After assuring myself that I hadn’t visited Perez Hilton in at least two weeks, I stammered out the first explanation I could think of, The Huffington Post. Being that she dabbles into the gossip world far more often than I do (that’s my story and I am sticking to it just like Bieber in denying that it’s his baby), I realized that it must mean that Huffington actually covers this stuff pretty darn well. Now it is rare that I would ever praise a website for giving me quick and instant access to the relationship status of teen pop stars, but on the internet that is just the kind of thing that has a massive niche. For instance, simply tagging this post “Justin Bieber” is virtually a guarantee that it’ll be the most viewed thing on in this site’s history.

Sometimes, as I’ve criticized many a time before, Huffington will often add these kind of stories to a disturbingly high place among the hard news headlines to get traffic. This must have been how I came across this juicy tidbit (as far as you are concerned anyway) before my girlfriend. But that’s just not good enough. I needed a better explanation. Thus, I had to dive into the slog of the gossip pages of The Huffington Post. Onward ho!

Apparently Justin and Selena have been seen holding hands in Belfast, a city apparently right alongside Hollywood for this kind of stuff (forget the IRA we want TMZ!). Wait, you thought they were broken up? Well think again! Scandalous, right? Right? (No. Wrong. But that is not the point here)

Now, to be perfectly honest, I had very little idea what I was looking at. Was it the most up to date news? Was it as stale as could be? Was it in Greek? I know the answer to ZERO of those questions. From what I could tell, Bieber was the story of the day, regardless if it was babies or girlfriends. That seemed fairly kosher. As the page went down, other stories started to pop up from Kim Kardashian’s divorce (apparently, that’s also pretty big news right now) to Kevin Federline (remember him?) running down the street. All in all, anything I could possibly have wanted was right there at my fingertips. If there was more, I don’t want to hear about it. The Huffington Post may not be synonymous with celebrity news, but it seems to be holding it’s own — at least as much as a news aggregator can.

Of course, it’s not all fun and games in the gossip world at Huffington. The positioning of Bill Nighy’s blog on the so-called “Robin Hood Tax” discussions at the G20 is probably a tiny bit heady for the celeb gossip page. Just because the guy who wrote it played a small role in Harry Potter doesn’t mean that those with Bieber fever particularly will be particularly enticed to read about the careful economic orchestra of Bill Gates, Nicolas Sarkozy and the collapse of Greece. Not that it this is the first or last time I’ve criticized the placement of Huffington’s articles, but I’m just saying.

Failure to Provide Coverage of Own Legal Troubles Destroys Huffington’s Credability

As part of of the massive array of sub-sections that are present on The Huffington Post website, they also look after further sections of the media. The stories that tend to permeate the top of the page are mostly clips of video cut from various political pundits at different networks that are interesting, controversial or include a modicum of unintentional humor. A few stories, such as the death of a UK broadcasting legend, make it up the page but nearly everything else revolves are some kind of video medium.

That is all well and good, except for the fact that that it leaves out the written media — a medium that Huffington has a foothold in. The failure to touch upon this isn’t necessarily a total indictment of the website, they never made a claim to be Poynter. What it does ignore is that the website is embroiled in a lawsuit over the origin of the idea. Like, it really ignores it. There is no coverage. At all.

The story is incredibly interesting. The two plaintiffs in the lawsuit both worked with Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer. In fact they, Peter Daou and James Boyce, blogged as recently as October 2010, despite the lawsuit going  to claims as far back as 2006. Now, it is understandable for the website to want to reduce the negative press they receive and what better way to do that than ignore it entirely. However, the story is out and ignoring it is not going to help them much. Actually, it hasn’t been entirely ignored. When the lawsuit was first allowed in May, the website posted a simple Associated Press article on the case that was devoid of the social media bells and whistles that has come to define The Huffington Post.

In fact, the failure to acknowledge their own struggles beyond opening, perfuntory coverage destroys their credability. Sure, there may be some things that they don’t wish to expose to more scrutiny as the lawsuit continues, but you might at least expect a statement from a site that covers everything. At The Huffington Post, nobody is safe from criticism. Unless it’s the website itself.

Too Much Fun: How to Handle the News in a Clicks-Based Culture

Throughout my weeks of watching the news flying across the internet at The Huffington Post I have often made sarcastic comments — if not full-blown criticism — of the website will often intersperse some lighter “news” stories to offset the heavier-hitting news of the moment. This is not something new to Huffngton and welcome to the many of sterotypical news-watchers complaints of, “why is the news so sad all of the time?” My criticism more arises when it appears that it’s not so much the light stories sprinkled in to break things up, but vice versa. From an organization the appears more or less committed to bringing the important news to the world, it seems odd.

Then you must remember the way internet news culture works. Stories may be generally interesting, but if they don’t generate page views they are hardly worth the server space they take up. At times, Hufffington can take this just a touch too far. Take for example their recent front page refer to the “World News” page.

The Moammar Gaddafi story is one that gets top billing, and deservedly so. The Chinese Toddler incident is much more of a story in China, but does have merit due to the apparent moral conundrums brought about in the saga, even if it’s billed a little high. The next three stories are where I begin to have issues. Sandwiched in the middle of two rather incongruous and arguable unimportant story is the major issue of terror in Kenya, stemming from international incidents with neighboring Somalia.

In particular, the story of Gaddafi’s wig serves to belittle the newsworthiness of the terror attacks. It is a trivial fact that is momentarily interesting and does a small amount to move forward the narrative of the leader’s vanity. Nothing else. With a lede of “Well, that’s embarrassing,” the story itself doesn’t helpt the cause.

Though the refer itself is puzzling to say the least, the page itself is structures itself much more appropriately.

Gadaffi again gets the headline with Argentinian elections and the Kenya terror attacks getting the sidebars. “Below the fold” lies an earthquake in Turkey, a devastating event that doesn’t even get mentioned in the main refer. Next comes Tunisian elections — the first in the country since their own uprising — and a collection of stories relating to US foreign relations. The “Hilarious UN Moments” story is retitled as “Best Moments” and falls near the bottom of the page — still two stories up from the Chinese toddler story. Gaddafi’s wig? Well for that you have to look two stories up from the very bottom right of the page, buried in amongst a slew of other stories on the leader. Hardly the top news of the day.

Credit must be given where it is due — which is to the remarkably complex web of integration between the different sections of The Huffington Posts’ website. Even the use of various refers to direct traffic throughout is impressive, but they often serve to push some of the more powerful storie away from the spotlight in favor of comedy, even making the whole ordeal stand out as less than ethically whole.

Occupy Huffington: Local Coverage of the Wall Street Protests.

With the general trend in the world of journalism toward hyper-local news, The Huffington Post is going right along for the ride. In fact, in addition to being affiliated with hyper-local hub Patch.com through parent company AOL, Huffington runs their own websites for six cities in the United States that brings out a more local flavor to the website.

In addition to New York, the five other cities getting in to the act are Los Angeles and Chicago (the other two largest media markets) as well as Washington D.C., San Francisco and Denver. All the sites put out the local news — some of which has national significance and will also make its way onto the front page and others that will stick with their bureaus. One story of national significance in the past few weeks has been the “Occupy Wall Street” protests. Of course, they have extended to other cities, but are mainly grouped under the same auspices. Of course, in New York they are actually on Wall Street, making it a slightly more compelling story than Occupy Denver — sorry Colorado.

 

One of the interesting aspects of The Huffington Post‘s New York coverage is that the stories that front the coverage on the website focus on the people. The featured story on a former Marine who spoke out at the protests. The story is even accompanied with a video of the incident, a nice touch that the multimedia aspect of Huffington allows it to do.

With such an on going story, the issues have mainly been hashed out already, published once the coverage got started. Though many of these topics may be fluid and leave room for additional reporting, it comes time to move into deeper, more nuanced coverage. In fact, the multimedia presentation of the protests — especially the human element — goes further with the photo gallery titled “The Faces of Occupy Wall Street.” Of course, the photo gallery allows the protesters their chance to project the issues, not dropping them completely, but the man on the street allows a close and personal look at the protest.

Even when dealing with the issues in a more traditional journalistic sense, the story — which falls in the online equivalent of below the fold — the story is able to project outside opinion with statistics. The use of a twitter-ready #OccupyWallStreet hashtag in the articles title furthers the sites projection as being well in tune with social media.

Of course, the “Shiny New Carousel” also gets top page billing on this website. Hey, nobody’s perfect.

Qwikster, Netflix and The Huffington Post

Over the past month, Netflix has made news — mostly bad — regarding their business strategy. From the raising of prices to the splitting of online and DVD rentals into separate entities to the ill-fated “apology” by CEO Reed Hastings. Through it all, the company’s travails graced a spot near the top of The Huffington Post homepage. The announcement that Qwikster — the DVD-only company that was to be split off from Netflix — is never actually going to come into existence, was no different.

The coverage of a technologic company by an all-online news organization is to be expected, especially with Huffington having its hands in all sorts of niche cookie jars when it comes to their coverage. What made it more interesting was that the coverage was unique and organic to the website. Where most of the content at Huffington is aggregated from other news sites or opinion pieces of the blog variety, the newest story on the death of Qwikster was of a more news-based format.

What Huffington does really well in this format is the technical aspects of web-based publishing.

The story itself is filled with links, helping to integrate the content with both their previous stories and those from other sources. The story also invites comment, asking for feedback from a list of terms on the top of the page. Facebook, Twitter, Google and e-mail sharing also is integrated into the page design. The bottom of the page even features a video on the news, expanding the mediums in use. The comment factor is also added as the story ends with the author asking for the opinions of the readers.

Do you think Netflix made the right move? Will you miss Qwikster? What will the fallout mean for Netflix?

Though the excessive use of all these strategies sometimes gets a little dizzying to view, The Huffington Post is able to do them all very well.

Do you like the strategies that Huffington uses? Is there any way that they could do it better?

Cult of Personality in a Social Media World

When peeking around at the international editions of The Huffington Post last week, I noticed the presence of a blog by Alec Baldwin on the always touchy subject of capital punishment. As an issue, it is hardly one that those who come down on either side of it are quick to reneg on. In fact, it fits right up there among the top reasons why politics are considered inappropriate dinnertime conversation. In the wake of the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia, the moral, ethical, legal, logistical, etc. dilemas associated with capital punishment again rose to the forefront for talking heads from all fronts to grab the nearest soapbox and begin to opine blindly to the masses, hoping to be hear. But Alec Baldwin?

Perhaps most interestingly is the commenting that occurred on Baldwin’s article. Over 1,000 comments were made on the Huffington web site, not to mention conversation about the blog on twitter. By comparison, a similarly timed editorial — which was linked from Baldwins at the bottom of the page — by theologian Tobias Winwright on the same subject garnered just 70 comments.

Online comments would certainly find their place in a very special circle of hell had Dante know of the inaneness that would be omnipresent after their invention, yet they certainly show a bit about the popularity of the individual blog post since the actual viewing statistics aren’t available. Many other blog posts the find themselves near the top of the roll along the left side of the home page — especially those revolving around politics and finances — crawl up into the hundreds of comments. Baldwin’s critique garnered double the next closest competitor that currently sits on the homepage.

As Molly Lambert at grantland.com pointed out earlier this year, Baldwin is quite the social media maven, but not the first word you would think of when it comes to punditry. He is a regular celebrity blogger for Huffington, but his stance against the death penalty took on far more verbose form that much of his previous entries. He even used the phrase, “”Manson manque posturing and utter humanistic bankruptcy,” in his post to describe Joshua Komisarjevsky, who is on trial for murder. That probably isn’t the vocabulary casually tossed out at many Hollywood cocktail parties.

Baldwin is a public figure and his celebrity credibility alone makes people interested in what he has to say. But perhaps the more interesting idea is the sheer amount of avenues for discussing Baldwin’s and others’ views that the web site make available to the reader.

Twitter links, comments, other news stories, and that is just the bare bones. Comments are allowed to be shared to three separate blogging hosts as well as social media outlets and micro blogs. The conversation takes on a grand scale and the ability to see what people are talking through various means and filters helps to dilute some of the sludge that comes with aforementioned Alighieri-ian inferno of most online commenting sections.

In fact, many other bloggers for The Huffington Post comment on other blogs, generating a sort of community. Since most of the news on the web site is aggregated, the blogs are the main means for the sites writers and editors to truly be heard. Baldwin will be heard no matter what he writes for the site. It is the nature of his celebrity. By opening the floodgates of social media and communication, other people can have there say too.

Savour the International Flavour

Contrary to the opinions of some who live in the United States of America, news does occur elsewhere in the world. People there, also wish to consume that news. With an increasingly international flavor rising in the general psyche of many, it makes great sense for a news organization to branch out their operation to cover the news around the globe. The Huffington Post is no different, expanding — in addition to adding more localized coverage of cities like New York and Chicago — to create separate web pages for those in the United Kingdom as well as those in Canada to compliment the main US-based coverage of huffingtonpost.com

With the presence of huffingtonpost.ca and huffingtonpost.co.uk, Huffington has a foothold in the media landscape on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite this, much of the news aggregated applies to readers in more than one of the locales, allowing the sites to work together. Looking early in the day on this fine Monday, let us take a gander at just want this regionalized coverage means to the website’s news topics of the day:

On a site that advertises “Breaking News and Opinion,” this certainly could be one or other. Maybe both, possibly neither. In fact, I’m finding myself hard pressed to remember a time before I was so jaded and numb to the fact that politics is a money game. I think I held on to my belief in Santa Claus far longer than that of pure democracy. But that is neither here nor there. Having reviewed the US site as the general standard in the first post, there really isn’t much else to judge. The first few stories that fall, for lack of a more time-appropriate phrase, “below the fold” involve mostly national-level politics (that we have just learned in the headline, are indeed for sale), a story about NetFlix and a look into a photo of dissapearing Canadian Cleavage. The outrage of our northern neighbors!

On the blog front — that peppers the left hand side of the screen — most are again related to politics. There is one story on Europe from an American perpective. The real winners in terms of blogging are Alec Baldwin’s take on capital punishment and Scarlett Johansson’s story from her recent trip to Africa.

Sadly, the disappearing cleavage from Canada doesn’t seem to bother Canada much at all. In fact, it doesn’t even appear on the entire page. What this says about America is not something I care to delve into at this juncture. Instead, the main story is about protests — some which they explicitly call out the United States — for development of oil pipelines. One thing that very much struck me was a strong sense of Canadian unity on the site. Also, the top featured blog was about hockey — though Alec Baldwin was once again, not far behind.

The Canada-specific page doesn’t completely drop the politics of their southern neighbor from the page. Oh no, they just drop it down to an area for ambitious journalistic endeavors and hard hitting news. An “Obama Blasts Rick Perry” article that was top and center, trailing only the money in politics story on the US page? About mid-page, right below a study that found “Dominating Women Have Less Sex” and to the left of a (quite adorable) video of bear cubs wrestling on the Canadian page. At least the United States’ top news still found found a place on the Canada page, oil protests from the north don’t cut it on the American news. Bring us disappearing breasts or nothing! Those are your options, Canada.

The UK site, possibly due to failing to share a border with either of their former colonies, doesn’t include any of the news of the other two. Even Alec Baldwin gets cut here. Instead it functions as it’s own entity. Sure, they still follow the idea that “sex sells” — this time of a studied rise in the unprotected variety amongst teens — that we saw in various stories on this side of the pond.

Despite the plethora of political stories, there is no reference to everything being for sale — though as I previously said, my jaded self finds it hard to believe it is totally free — or to any disappearing cleavage. Instead they ask grueling difficult questions under the headline, “Tough Choices.”

Will the Labor Party show any support for a coalition?

Is the Labor Party ‘to tribal?’

What is your favourite Lady Gaga song?

Now THESE are the hard hitting questions that make journalism tick.

Online Only Experience: An Opening Look at “The Huffington Post”

Since the Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien published its first edition in 1605 and reported on things such as Galileo’s telescope (they had a great science blog), the media has seen its job description include watching and reporting on society. Media has toppled governments. It has united communities. It has given us in depth reporting and amateur sketches of leprechauns terrorizing the people of Mobile, Ala. All of this begs an age-old question: with the media watching everybody else, who is watching the media? Me. I will be watching them. In at least one instance anyway.

Arianna Huffington and co., I will be diligently keeping at least one eye on you for the next three months, so watch yourselves.

Previously looking at The Huffington Post homepage as an non-critical observer I looked at the website with what could at best be considered general indifference and at worst total disregard, I now can remark upon a newfound feeling of nascent malaise. Oh sure, the layout is rather crisp and with a wealth more orignal content than I had recalled and the “cover” story (although it comes from local sources) shows a breath of the investigative journalism that has so often felt the cold steel of the accountant’s blade in recent industry downsizing, but dear me, that pun. Amazon.wrong? I get the gist of the headline, but the New York Post they are not.

Other than that, the large visual top news item makes the general site rather appealing. But what if I were to say, not care particularly about the cruel fates suffered by scores of blue collar laborers in the Leigh Valley, rude as that would be? What Huffington Post, you want me to scroll down to see what else has been happening in this 140-character, six-second attention span world? Highly doubtful. Thank goodness there is a clean navigation menu across the top should I want to get more specific in my endeavors of readership. This may be where they get slightly overwhelming.

There seems a manageable amount of tabs with various categories you might want to read about (even media! I watch them while they watch all the other outlets who are watching everything, confused yet?) and under them any number of subcategories. While I understand the need for hyper-specialization on the internet, there some times seems like too many options right at your fingertips from the onset. As if all that sub-categorization was not enough, there is indeed a “More” tab to give further options and sub-menues. Yet in some light, knowing that you can surf as you choose in an active manor is a nice feeling to have in front of you. Now if you decide to scroll down to see your news, the site is more than ready to besiege your retinas.

Page upon scrolled page of blogs and picture-linked stories are there to meet you. Looking at this setup it’s clear though that the options themselves are not really the thing overwhelming, it’s the mere organization of them that can cause migraines with too much intake. One has to applaud the multitasking ability of the editors in charge of keeping all these stories current though.

One thing that I am more than happy to paint in a positive light about the layout is the gratuitous ratio of content to ads. There are few ads within the immediate view and with so many equal-sized pictures populating your view, the ones that aren’t the news you thought you came to seek are hardly distinguishable at all. Even the Moneyball header in the first screen shot gives you the option of expanding to see the video instead of giving you a frightening Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill filled surprise party the second you land on the page.

However the bottom of the page — should you ever actually reach it — pops out at you, revealing a full map of the treasures that the full website can offer, only no X marks any particular spot.

That screen grab doesn’t even show us that full breadth of the “All Things Arianna” section, which sounds like it should be a show coming to the Disney Channel at any moment.

I may have seemed a bit harsh on The Huffington Post as a whole entity, but my main qualm lies simply with it’s sometimes head-spinning layout. The final screen shot goes a long way to showing the shear scope of the blog community that the site contains, providing not just a niche for digital news seekers but an entire ecosystem that runs the entire gambit in terms of online news. Beyond just the original reporting and widespread aggregating there is the large amount of opinion in the form of blogs and more multimedia content than most traditional news gathering organizations would shake a stick at, but you’d expect nothing less from a “newspaper” that made its name solely in the vaste universe of cyberspace. In that simple, my friends, lies the meat of The Huffington Post and why it does the sometimes confusing things it does.