Star blogging
: In one of the worst-kept secrets around, Arianna Huffington, blogger and blog lover, is starting an online thing — group blog, zine, whatever — that is supposed to be attracting big names to little media. Writes Greg Lindsay:
Based in New York and staffed with a full complement of editors, the Huffington Report appears to be a culture and politics webzine in the classic mold of Salon or Slate. It will have breaking news, a media commentary section called “Eat the Press,” and its most interesting innovation, a group blog manned by the cultural and media elite: Sen. Jon Corzine, Larry David, Barry Diller, Tom Freston, David Geffen, Vernon Jordan, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Harry Evans and his wife, Tina Brown. That’s just to name a few, and Huffington is still recruiting.
Her business partner is Ken Lerer, the head of AOL Time Warner corporate communications until Bob Pittman lost and Dick Parsons won.
PaidContent also found a connection to Jonah Peretti of Eyebeam. Lerer, Peretti and others worked together on projects for the Million Mom March.
Of course, the punchline here is that Tina Brown, who loves to dis blogs, could blog. But that assumes that these guys will be blogging. It’s more likely they’ll be dropping their political bon mots when they want. But it’s a smart move to create the bon-mot-catcher to take advantage of that: Send an email to Arianna and have it published to the world. It’s a lot easier than having to go into Air America or Bill Maher’s show.