Arianna Huffington, the president and editor-and-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, talks to Brown Political Review’s Ben Wofford. The Huffington Post is the most-visited political website, and last year became the first digital news publication to win the Pulitzer Prize. A frequent commentator on American politics, Huffington has been named one of the world’s most influential people by Time, Forbes and the Guardian.
Brown Political Review: Le Huffington Post is going into its third year in France. What is it about HuffPo’s model that you think allows it to succeed internationally?
Arianna Huffington: Our business model can be implemented anywhere in the world, because the Huffington Post is essentially an online conversation made up of voices and ideas, which exist in every country on earth. By 2020, nearly 3 billion people will be added to the Internet’s community, and by expanding internationally we want to open up the conversation on a global scale. HuffPost now has editions in Canada, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, and Germany, with Korea, Brazil and India coming next. So far, our international editions have worked together on stories with worldwide resonance, including youth unemployment, the selection of Pope Francis and gay rights in different countries.
BPR: What do you make of new pay models adopted by online-only sites like Talking Points Memo or Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish — not quite a paywall, but more of a club membership for premium content? Where do you see that going?
Huffington: I’m very interested in the ways news organizations and web sites are seeking new, creative and sustainable ways to do their work. And I see the willingness to try out new business models as yet another indicator that we’re living in a golden age of journalism for news consumers. There’s no shortage of great journalism being done, and there’s no shortage of people hungering for it. And there are many different business models trying to connect the former with the latter. Our business model is free and advertising-supported, but with multiple advertising models, including native advertising and sponsorships.
BPR: Is that something conducive to the Huffington Post? Should we get ready for HuffPo Premium, perhaps?
Providing a free and open space for people to engage and interact with each other in a civil way, that’s central to our mission. Huffington: No. From the beginning, part of the ethos of HuffPost was that it would always be free. Providing a free and open space for people to engage and interact with each other in a civil way, that’s central to our mission.
BPR: You’re a frequent commentator on Washington and a frequent guest on This Week With George Stephanopoulos. Which does The Huffington Post model need to lean towards in order to thrive in the future — reading the Washington Tea leaves or renegade reporting?
Huffington: It’s not an either/or proposition for us. HuffPost’s goal has always been to embrace the hybrid future of journalism, combining the best practices of traditional journalism like fairness, accuracy, storytelling and deep investigations with the best tools available to the digital world — speed, transparency, and, above all, engagement.
BPR: Will President Obama’s first term be viewed as a failure? Did it diminish your view of him as a leader?
Huffington: His first term certainly had its disappointments. In his first four years, President Obama deported as many undocumented workers as President Bush did in two terms – one of several ways Obama’s administration has continued and even doubled down on some Bush’s policies. The only major thing Obama did regarding access to guns in his first term was to actually increase it, signing a bill to allow people to bring loaded firearms into national parks and on Amtrak trains. President Obama still has the opportunity to be a transformational president, but I think only if he spends the rest of his second term finally unleashing the audacity that propelled his presidency in the beginning.
BPR: You’re one of the Democratic Party’s most vocal critics on economic issues; now there’s heightening speculation of a Warren run. Do you see 2016 as a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party?
Huffington: It’s way too early for me to engage in 2016 speculation! I love what David McCullough, Truman’s biographer, said: “Every presidential election is a renewal. Like spring, it brings up all the juices. The people are so tired of contrivance and fabrication and hokum. They really want to be stirred in their spirit.”
BPR: Are you concerned that the left’s search for a “true liberal” mimics that of the right’s search for a “true conservative” in the last few elections?
Huffington: Whether a candidate is “true” or “pure” in an ideological sense, to me is far less meaningful than his or her willingness to go beyond the outmoded dichotomy of left and right if it’s in order to bring about the solutions our country desperately needs.
BPR: What is Hillary Clinton’s greatest weakness?
Huffington: She’s that rare (and presumed) candidate whose distinguishing qualities — her name recognition, her leadership experience, her prominence in the Democratic Party — might prove to be strengths or weaknesses. It depends on where the country is in 2016 and who’s running against her.
BPR: You’re talking to one of the most under-slept campuses in America. With so many issues competing for your attention and endorsement, what ever motivated you to become an advocate for sleep?
Huffington: I started on the path to sleep evangelism in 2007. I’d just returned home after a week of taking my daughter on a tour of colleges, and the rule was no BlackBerry during the day. So I stayed up very late to catch up on work. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor, bloodied. I had passed out from exhaustion and banged my head on the way down. The result was a broken cheekbone and five stitches under my eyebrow. I think when it comes to wakeup calls, few are as effective as the spilling of your own blood.
I’ll tell you the same thing I told the graduates of Smith College at their commencement earlier this year. There will be plenty of signposts along your path directing you to make money and climb up the ladder, but there will be almost no signposts reminding you to stay connected to the essence of who you are, to take care of yourself along the way, to reach out to others, to pause to wonder. None of these things are possible if we deprive ourselves of sleep.