Huffington Post

''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers politics, business, entertainment, environment, technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy living, women's interests, and local news featuring columnists. It was created to provide a progressive alternative to the conservative news websites such as the Drudge Report. The site offers content posted directly on the site as well as user-generated content via video blogging, audio, and photo. In 2012, the website became the first commercially run United States digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Founded by Andrew Breitbart, Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, the site was launched on May 9, 2005 as a counterpart to the Drudge Report. In March 2011, it was acquired by AOL for US$315 million, making Arianna Huffington editor-in-chief. In June 2015, Verizon Communications acquired AOL for US$4.4 billion and the site became a part of Verizon Media. In November 2020, BuzzFeed acquired the company. Weeks after the acquisition, BuzzFeed laid off 47 ''HuffPost'' staff in the U.S. (mostly journalists) and closed down ''HuffPost Canada'', laying off 23 staff working for the Canadian and Quebec divisions of the company.

History

''The Huffington Post'' was launched on May 9, 2005, as a commentary outlet, blog, and an alternative to news aggregators such as the Drudge Report. It was founded by Arianna Huffington, Andrew Breitbart, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti. Prior to this, Arianna Huffington hosted the website Ariannaonline.com. Her first foray into the Internet was the website Resignation.com, which called for the resignation of President Bill Clinton and was a rallying place for conservatives opposing Clinton.

An early ''Huffington Post'' strategy was crafting search-engine optimized (SEO) stories and headlines based around trending keywords, such as "What Time Is the Super Bowl?"

In August 2006, ''The Huffington Post'' raised a $5 million Series A round from SoftBank Capital and Greycroft.

In December 2008, ''The Huffington Post'' raised $25 million from Oak Investment Partners at a $100 million valuation and Fred Harman of Oak Investment Partners joined its board of directors. The money was to be used for technology, infrastructure, investigative journalism, and development of local versions.

In June 2009, Eric Hippeau, co-managing partner of Softbank Capital, became CEO of ''The Huffington Post''.

In January 2011, ''The Huffington Post'' received 35% of its traffic from web search engines, compared to 20% at CNN. This strategy appealed to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who tried to implement similar SEO-driven journalism practices at AOL at the time of its acquisition of ''The Huffington Post''.

In March 2011, AOL acquired ''The Huffington Post'' for 315 million. As part of the deal, Huffington became president and editor-in-chief of ''The Huffington Post'' and existing AOL properties Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater (now HuffPost Celebrity), AOL Music, AOL Latino (now ''HuffPost Voices''), AutoBlog, Patch, and StyleList.

''The Huffington Post'' subsumed many of AOL's ''Voices'' properties, including ''AOL Black Voices'', which was established in 1995 as Blackvoices.com, and ''AOL Latino'', ''Impact'' (launched in 2010 as a partnership between ''Huffington Post'' and Causecast), ''Women'', ''Teen'', ''College'', ''Religion'', and the Spanish-language ''Voces (en español)''. The ''Voices'' brand was expanded in September 2011 with the launch of ''Gay Voices'', dedicated to LGBT-relevant articles.

By late 2013, the website operated as a "stand-alone business" within AOL, taking control of more of its own business and advertising operations, and directing more effort towards securing "premium advertising".

In June 2015, Verizon Communications acquired AOL for US$4.4 billion and the site became a part of Verizon Media.

Huffington resigned to pursue other ventures and was succeeded as editor-in-chief by Lydia Polgreen in December 2016.

In April 2017, Polgreen announced the company would rebrand, changing its official full name to ''HuffPost'', with changes also to the design of its website and logo and content and reporting.

On January 24, 2019, 20 employees were laid off as a part of Verizon Media laying off 7% of its staff. The opinion and health sections were eliminated. Pulitzer Prize finalist Jason Cherkis lost his job.

On March 6, 2020, Polgreen announced that she would step down as editor-in-chief to become the head of content at Gimlet Media.

On November 19, 2020, it was announced that BuzzFeed had agreed to acquire ''HuffPost'' from Verizon Media in a stock deal. Later in November 2020, HuffPost shut down its India operation after six years. According to some media reports, the acquisition did not include the India site due to regulations barring foreign ownership of Indian Digital Media.

On February 16, 2021, BuzzFeed's acquisition of ''HuffPost'' officially closed. On March 9, 2021, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said that the company had lost "around $20 million" during the previous year. The same day, it was announced that ''HuffPost Canada'' would be shut down and immediately ceased publishing.

On April 12, 2021, Danielle Belton became editor-in-chief.

Local editions

* In spring 2007, the first local version, ''HuffPost Chicago'', was launched.
* In June 2009, ''HuffPost New York'' was launched.
* ''HuffPost Denver'' launched on September 15, 2009.
* ''HuffPost Los Angeles'' launched on December 2, 2009.
* ''HuffPost San Francisco'' launched on July 12, 2011.
* ''HuffPost Detroit'' launched on November 17, 2011
* ''HuffPost Miami'' launched in November 2011.
* ''HuffPost Hawaii'' was launched in collaboration with the online investigative reporting and public affairs news service Honolulu Civil Beat on September 4, 2013.

International editions

* On May 26, 2011, ''HuffPost Canada'', the first international edition, was launched. Following BuzzFeed's acquisition of HuffPost, it was announced on March 9, 2021, that ''HuffPost Canada'' would stop publishing content and cease operations the following week as part of a broader restructuring plan for the company.
* On July 6, 2011, ''Huffington Post UK'' was launched.
* On January 23, 2012, ''The Huffington Post'', in partnership with ''Le Monde'' and Les Nouvelles Editions Indépendantes, launched ''Le Huffington Post'', a French-language edition and the first in a non-English speaking country.
* On February 8, 2012, another French language edition was launched in Quebec.
* On May 1, 2012, a U.S.-based Spanish-language edition was launched under the name ''HuffPost Voces'', replacing AOL Latino.
* In June 2012, the edition for Spain, ElHuffPost, was launched.
* On May 6, 2013, an edition for Japan was launched with the collaboration of ''Asahi Shimbun'', the first edition in an Asian country.
* On September 24, 2013, an Italian edition, ''L'Huffington Post'', was launched, directed by journalist Lucia Annunziata in collaboration with the media company Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso.
* In June 2013, ''Al Huffington Post'', the third francophone edition, launched for the Maghreb French area. On December 3, 2019, the Maghreb edition was closed.
* On October 10, 2013, Munich-based ''Huffington Post Deutschland'' was launched in co-operation with the liberal-conservative magazine ''Focus'', covering German-speaking Europe. On January 11, 2018, it was announced that the German language edition would shut down on March 31, 2018.
* In January 2014, Arianna Huffington and Nicolas Berggruen announced the launch of the ''WorldPost'', created in partnership with the Berggruen Institute. Its contributors have included former British prime minister Tony Blair, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, novelist Jonathan Franzen, and musician Yo-Yo Ma.
* On January 29, 2014, the Brazilian version was launched as ''Brasil Post'', in partnership with Grupo Abril, the first in Latin America. Brasil Post was later renamed ''Huffington Post Brasil'' in 2015, then ''HuffPost Brasil''. In November 2020, the edition was closed down following BuzzFeed's acquisition.
* In February 2014, a Korean language edition was launched in South Korea in partnership with the local center-left newspaper ''The Hankyoreh.
* In September 2014, planned launches were announced for sites for Greece, India, as well ''HuffPost Arabi'', an Arabic version of the website.
* On August 18, 2015, ''HuffPost Australia'' was launched.
* On November 21, 2016, ''HuffPost South Africa'', the brand's first sub-Saharan edition, was launched in partnership with Media24. The South African edition stopped when the partnership with Media24 ended in 2018.

Criticism and controversy

Unpaid bloggers

The site originally published work from both paid reporters and unpaid bloggers through its contributor platform.

In February 2011, Visual Art Source, which had been cross-posting material from its website, went on strike against ''The Huffington Post'' to protest its writers not being paid. In March 2011, the strike and the call to boycott was joined and endorsed by the National Writers Union and NewsGuild-CWA; however, the boycott was dropped in October 2011.

In April 2011, ''The Huffington Post'' was targeted with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by Jonathan Tasini on behalf of thousands of uncompensated bloggers. On March 30, 2012, the suit was dismissed with prejudice by the court, holding that the bloggers had volunteered their services, their compensation being publication.

In 2015, Wil Wheaton stated that he refused to allow his work to be reused for free on the site.

The practice of publishing blog posts from unpaid contributors ended in January 2018. This transformed the site, which had become notable for featuring extensive sections in a broad range of subjects from a significant number of contributors. Some of the contributors included:

* Adrienne Wu on gender, and species, identity
* Arianna Huffington
* Barack Obama on politics
* Robert Reich on politics
* Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge on mental health issues.
* Harry Shearer on life issues
* Jeff Pollack on music
* Roy Sekoff on politics
* Craig Taro Gold, spiritual author
* Jeff Halevy on health
* Cenk Uygur
* Diane Ravitch on education
* Jacob M. Appel on ethics
* Howard Friedman on statistics and politics
* Auren Hoffman on business and politics
* Cara Santa Maria on science
* Nancy Rappaport on child psychiatry
* Iris Krasnow on marriage
* Anand Reddi publishes on global health
* Radley Balko on civil liberties and the criminal justice system
* Frances Beinecke on climate change and the environment
* Jenna Busch on the entertainment industry
* Jerry Capeci on the mafia
* Margaret Carlson on politics
* Dominic Carter on politics
* Deepak Chopra on integrative medicine and personal transformation
* John Conyers (deceased) on politics
* Danielle Crittenden on Jewish lifestyle
* Laurie David on environmental and food issues
* Andrea Doucet on gender relations
* Ryan Duffy on demographic trends
* Maddy Dychtwald on gender relations
* Ivan Eland on defense
* Mitch Feierstein on the Federal Reserve
* Bruce Fein on law
* Ashley Feinberg on politics, media, and technology
* Michelle Fields on politics
* Rob Fishman on social media
* Myriam François-Cerrah on France and the Middle East
* Dan Froomkin on politics
* Yvonne K. Fulbright on sexuality
* Phil Radford on climate change and the environment
* Lauren Galley on issues important to teen girls
* Mort Gerberg publishes cartoons
* Tim Giago on Native Americans
* Steve Gilliard on politics
* Philip Giraldi on counterterrorism issues
* David Goldstein on politics
* Nathan Gonzalez on foreign policy
* Kent Greenfield on constitutional law, business law, and legal theory
* Anthony Gregory on habeas corpus
* Greg Gutfeld on politics in a comedic taste
* David Hackel on politics
* Leon Hadar on foreign policy
* Katie Halper on politics
* Thor Halvorssen on human rights
* Jane Hamsher on politics
* Aaron Harber on politics
* Johann Hari on drugs and addiction
* David Harsanyi on politics and culture
* Gary Hart on international law
* Mehdi Hasan on the Middle East
* Auren Hoffman on entrepreneurship
* Nicholas von Hoffman on politics
* Paul Holdengräber on the arts
* Hamid Naderi Yeganeh on math art

Alternative medicine and anti-vaccination controversy

''HuffPost'' has been criticized for providing a platform for alternative medicine and supporters of vaccine hesitancy. Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society, criticized ''The Huffington Post'' for allowing homeopathy proponent Dana Ullman to have a blog on the site. In 2011, skeptic Brian Dunning listed it at No. 10 on his "Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites" list.

Anne Sinclair appointment to editorial director in France during Strauss-Kahn affair

In January 2012, ''The Huffington Post'' was criticized for naming as editorial director in France the well-known former TV journalist Anne Sinclair because she stood by her husband Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former IMF head, when several women accused him of sexual assault. Commentators at '' l'Express'', ''Rue89'', and ''Le Monde'' warned against potential conflict of interest in the French edition's news coverage.

Apology by the South African edition

In April 2017, ''HuffPost South Africa'' was directed by the press ombud to apologize unreservedly for publishing and later defending a column calling for disenfranchisement of white men which was declared malicious, inaccurate and discriminatory hate speech.

Jeffrey Epstein

In July 2019, ''HuffPost'' was criticized for publishing a story written by Rachel Wolfson, a publicist, that praised Jeffrey Epstein. Editors later removed the article at the author's request.

Political stance

''HuffPost'' has been seen as a mostly progressive, liberal or liberal-leaning outlet, being described as such by the BBC
...