Comments on: All hail Arianna

By: Guido Fawkes

Guido Fawkes — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:11:19 +0000

Quite right. Huffington is not as intellectual as me.

By: Roland Baker

Roland Baker — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:00:32 +0000

Arianna Huffington is no more a public intellectual than Guido Fawkes. HuffPost is not the NYT, WSJ and Washington Post provided on line to a wider audience. It is half way between the thinking type’s tabloid and the Daily Red Top. It seems to rely mainly, like Guido Fawkes, on establishment tattle - which has to be simultaneously hyped up and dumbed down to attract the advertisers that provide its revenue.

No rose-tinted glow should be attached to the BBC either. It is not a public intellectual with its staged and entirely false shouting matches between politicians and arrogant reporters. Its private green-room agreements before the news shows let politicians dictate what will be discussed - the less they are interviewed the louder the shouting match to compensate. It has no case for its licence fee as it is not independent and not the arbiter of broadcasting standards. It provides bonuses to executives guilty of criminal deceit against its viewers and listeners.

By: Alfred Gide

Alfred Gide — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:05:01 +0000

Shall we all continue watching FOX? Now that is news brought to you by real professionals :-)

By: Sam Carson

Sam Carson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:26:49 +0000

I think Mr. Keen’s point is overstated, as is his “Rise of Amateurism” thesis. Though his Prospect article is interesting in pointing out the cost benefit analysis of “Blogs” versus Newspapers.

The decline of newspapers and rise of blogs has much more to do with the growing distrust of “Mainstream Media”. The replacement of good journalism with punditry and use of media outlets as stripped down corporate profit machines have made people cynical of big news media.

This point is supported by the difference in media cynicism between the UK and US. The BBC anchors the news market in the UK, effectively setting the status quo in how we interact with media and news. The US has no such device, and this has lead to watered down news teams, then poor coverage (ie Judith Miller) but increased gas-bagging editorials (CNN’s Glenn Beck, Fox News in general), then to cynicism, then to market alternatives, then to Ms. Huffington.

I wonder if Mr. Keen has not mistaken the cause for the effect.

By: Dennis Kenny

Dennis Kenny — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 10:09:26 +0000

I barely stopped myself from pasting the quoted phrase “attention shoppers” into the browser search box before finishing this article.

By: James Mackay

James Mackay — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:18:27 +0000

The article carries the fascinating possibility that in an age when no newspaper can afford the heavy costs of foreign journalism, the BBC’s publicly funded network might mean that Britain controls the world’s future supply of news from smaller countries. If it survives the current assaults from Murdoch newspapers and individualistic objections to hypothecated taxation, it could end up being one of the UK’s most valuable assets.

By: Ramesh Raghuvanshi

Ramesh Raghuvanshi — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:53:12 +0000

I donot think newspapers must afraid too much to HUFFPOST.This is a new kind of yellow journalism.Yes traditional newspaper must change themselves.
First they must close down their old formet, and bring their newspaper on web free of charge, increase clissified advertisement on web.give more international news.
Most important change the news coverage, in news business reliability is most important. Yellow newspaper never reliable all over world.They are cheater and reader never balieve them,they are prosper today because no alternative or say competator to them so they are so popular.