She has lined up more than 250 of what she calls "the most creative minds" in the country to write a group blog that will range over topics from politics and entertainment to sports and religion. It is essentially a nonstop virtual talk show that will be part of a Web site that will also serve up breaking news around the clock. It is to be introduced May 9.
A Boldface Name Invites Others to Blog With Her details just some of the onslaught that blogging will see in the future, this newest infusion coming from Arianna Huffington along with some very note-worthy names.
Walter Cronkite, David Mamet, Nora Ephron, Warren Beatty, James Fallows, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Maggie Gyllenhaal, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Diane Keaton, Norman Mailer and Mortimer B. Zuckerman, Tony Blankley, David Frum, and Gary Hart, who will be taking the lead on national security issues. Certainly there will also be many more.
Ms. Huffington's effort - to be called the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com) - will also seek to ferret out potentially juicy items and give them legs. In fact, she has hired away Mr. Drudge's right-hand Web whiz, Andrew Breitbart, who used to be her researcher.
But unlike the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post will be interactive, offering news as well as commentary from famous people and allowing the masses to comment too, although not always directly with the celebs. Notables will oversee certain sections, with Gary Hart, the former Colorado senator, for example, taking the lead on national security issues. R. O. Blechman, the magazine illustrator, has designed the site. All material will be free and available on archives.
No surprise that with the headline ink welcoming blogging to the big time barely dry, soon headlines will welcome the big-time to blogging - thought certainly in some ways they are already here.
In my experience, the ones who are here - Roger Simon, Jerry Brown, Jeff Jarvis and others, my experience is that they are for the most part truly blogs. Call me skeptical, but I'm wondering just how true that will be of many writing, I mean blogging under the Huffington banner.
It will take more than a headline or a byline to convince me that many already on the list are prepared to do the work and desire the interaction required to maintain anything resembling a blog as we know it today.
So, is blogging about to change, or just some of the people doing it?
I posted on this a while back The Liberal Answer to Drudge. I had no cared enough to follow it since. I would have to agree, I doubt it will ever fly. Huffington may be a pretty strong force, but the other folks will never fully embrace it.
Dean
Posted by: dean | Monday, April 25, 2005 at 09:38 AM