When The Huffington Post first went on-line in 2005, it was a pretty big deal, at least to me. It was in the midst of the divisive Iraq War debate - a conservative 'regime' in the White House pitted against anti-war masses mobilized to a degree not seen since the 1960s. The idea seemed to be to take the model for The Drudge Report, of which I had been a fan for years, a step further. Rather than merely compiling news stories, there was to be a more active involvement in The Huffington Post; there would be original content and a multitude of contributors, all picking up on the new phenomenon known as the blogging, and it was no secret that most if not all of them would write from a liberal point of view.
I have some very conservative views, and I have some very liberal views. I like to think I'd be welcome at both Rachel Maddow's and Ted Nugent's dinner tables, at least through appetizers, and I really don't believe I'm unique to that end. I think most plugged-in Americans live just to the right, or just to the left of center, and I was excited for what seemed to be Arianna Huffington's answer to a strong conservative presence on-line, because I like dialogue, I want debate, I demand two sides. I immediately added The Huffington Post to my 'favorites' menu, and just about every single morning since has included a brief visit, at the very least.
As a news organization, it was never rock solid. Every once in a while there'd be a slip up, something that either allowed its liberal bias to get in the way of accurate reporting, or worse, revealed an intrinsic amateurishness: In April 2009, when news broke that Somali pirates had hijacked the Maersk Alabama (a serious turn of events that put a lot of lives in danger and picked at the already frayed edges of our sense of security), the headline on the front page of The Huffington Post read (in huge, 90-point type): ARRRRR!
It stayed that way for at least an hour before being promptly switched to something more subdued, something that matched the gravity of the situation. It was doubtless an honest faux pas, perhaps unavoidable in what I'd wager is an egalitarian environment, where the chain of command is forsaken for a more communal forum, but an unequivocal sign nevertheless that the bullpen at The Huffington Post might not be populated by experienced, crackerjack reporters so much as young intern-types, barely in their twenties and already jaded and lazy, fancying themselves super clever, yet sadly lacking the tightly sewn, comprehensive worldview we all assume is a job requirement.
Either that, or some now-ex employee hacked in and sabotaged the front page. I'm guessing not.
But in any case, in spite of this and other minor gaffes over time, The Huffington Post managed to keep my interest, keep me coming back and reading, which in the end is all that matters: eyeballs on the page, and all that.
Then in 2011, it was purchased by AOL amidst much fanfare, lining Arianna's pockets prettily and leaving her editor-in-chief. Good for her; I like and admire Arianna Huffington, actually. But I wonder how much editorial control she really has, because in the ensuing two years, the on-line publication bearing her name and reputation has dissolved into little more than a mushy outlet for tabloid fodder.
It has become utterly obsessed with celebrity skin and scandal (the brilliant Jon Stewart was not digging too deep into his brilliance referring to HuffPost as, The Sideboob Gazette), and gotten really skilled (or not so...) at churning out poorly written news stories about things that do not warrant a news story. Attempting to be all things to all readers, it seems to revel in the simplistic, the juvenile, the gossipy, and specialize in asinine photo-ops; a nonstop exhibit of angry babies, happy babies, puppies, kittens and other assorted furry animals, gets copy-and-pasted off Reddit and slapped up on the front page with a screaming headline like, 'This will make your heart EXPLODE!' or 'You'll never GUESS what's got this cute kid so UPSET!', as though since the buyout, HuffPost's staff of 24-year-old interns has been replaced with an army of 12-year-old girls. Most of their headlines are hyperbolic at best, hysterical on a really bad day (think: that 12-year-old girl capitalizing everything or using multiple exclamation points in order to drive her point home), and each and every hollow news story that accompanies them - whether it's someone's glimpse of sideboob, a celebrity feud, or a bad tip some Applebee's waitress received in Punta Gorda, Florida or Kansas City, Missouri last Saturday night - saps the Huffpost's legitimacy in a slow but steady leak.
Can a HuffPost 'Page 3 Girl' be far off?
Well, probably not, actually; there'd be no point. Every day there's two or three girls on Page 1 - a slew of bikini clad celebrities, either a paparazzi long shot on a beach somewhere or a Tweeted selfie, taking up precious front page real estate, in either case The Huffington Post declaring their bikini bods 'STUNNING!' or 'MIND BLOWING!'
Do I think there's anything wrong with bikini girls? Absolutely not. Or puppies and kittens for that matter, or any 'lighter side' news. Sometimes we need the lighter side. Sometimes the lighter side is all that enables us to keep plugging on. But again, 'sideboob' isn't any kind of news at all, not worth anyone's time or effort - to write or read about. Trolling Reddit does not qualify as news compiling, and is certainly not worthy of The Huffington Post's original editorial intent.
The fact that it has felt a need to pander shamelessly to short attention spans, puerile interests and pop culture, and/or attempt to give that mess equal time with the legitimate news stories it follows, or its contributors still trying to make their worthy points heard, is definitely a reason to seek out a nebulous life.
