Arianna Huffington Discovers 'Weird Porn' on the Internet
Though she's been depicted strangling newspapers and stealing their content, Arianna Huffington was just warmly praised by the Washington Post's publisher. There are several reasons for this, starting with her comment about "very weird porn."
Internet mogul Huffington might be difficult to work for, but she's a social charmer. Her performance at the Wall Street Journal's D tech conference was a good illustration of her endearingly saucy approach; asked whether Huffington Post would ever charge a subscription fee, as many newspapers are now contemplating, she said that only works for porn — and, increasingly, only for the fetish stuff.
WaPo publisher Katherine Weymouth clearly admired Huffington, not only for her charisma but also for the Huffington Post's success online. Given a chance to take a swipe at HuffPo, which is entering local markets like hers with $25 million in venture funding, Weymouth instead praised the "amazing" site and thanked Huffington for sending her traffic.
The two "Posts" are linked by more than just traffic: The Nicholas Graham who works as an associate news editor at HuffPo is related to former WaPo publisher Katherine Graham, we're told, making him part of the same family news dynasty as Weymouth.
Not that Weymouth needs a family connection to praise Huffington. Any media scion charged with growing the family newspaper business in the 21st Century would be foolish not to try and pick up some lessons from a publication that's spun huge traffic from free writers.
