May 2008: The Huffington Post

The Blog of the Month for May 2008 is The Huffington Post. Since it was launched in May 2005 it has become a must-read for the political and journalistic class of the United States. Its co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington has been described by the Guardian as ‘the Queen of the blogosphere.' In 2006 she made Time magazine's most influential people in the world list. Her site, featuring news, opinion and videos from the worlds of politics, business, media, arts, entertainment and living, is now a leading online liberal voice.

The Huffington Post is an aggregate of many blogs and the writing is of a high standard. However, for a site that enjoys something of an anti-establishment image - Huffington is particularly outspoken about Iraq - the list of those who blog on the site does not strike us as being that surprising. Among those whose opinions are regularly featured are novelist Eric Jong and Paul Begala, who works for CNN and was a member of the Clinton administration. However, the site does value comments from its registered users and those who become top commenters have the chance to be featured bloggers. (One recent blog from Arianna Huffington on Hillary Clinton has attracted almost 2000 comments!)

There is much here at The Huffington Post and while the suspicion remains that the site the might represent a new web establishment, it has a genuine presence and cannot be ignored.

Garan Holcombe