Who owns them?

The Huffington Post is owned by the company Oath who is a Verizon company. The Britannica Encyclopedia states, “It was founded in May 2005 by political activist Arianna Huffington, former America Online executive Kenneth Lerer, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab graduate Jonah Peretti.” (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d., para. 1). Since that time, Arianna Huffington has stepped down in 2016. “Arianna Huffington resigned as editor-in-chief and former New York Times Johannesburg Bureau Chief Lydia Polgreen became editor-in-chief.” (Media Bias/Fact Check, n.d., para. 4).

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How many are owned by the same parent company? Are any owned by independent sources?

Media Bias/ Fact Check sums these questions up by saying, “In March 2011, AOL acquired The Huffington Post for $315 million and Arianna Huffington was named as president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post Media Group, which included AOL properties such as Engadget and MapQuest. In 2015, Verizon bought AOL and the Huffington Post became part of Verizon.” (Media Bias/Fact Check, n.d., para. 4).

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What is their annual revenue?

In 2015 it was said that, “The Huffington Post generated $146 million in revenue last year, according to a report in The New York Times Magazine.” (Sebastian, 2015, para. 1). While seeing through information, it is believed that their annual revenue is around $500 million.

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Where do they get their revenue from?

The Huffington Post is known to be a blog spot for journalists. They were first known to collect contributions from celebrities, but when they became more popular they would look for revenue through digital advertising. The New York Times mentions, “But it also has a huge amount of content accounting for those page views.” (Silver,2011, para. 5). Just like any online company, the Huffington post gains revenue through selling advertising space on their website. Tech Boomers also adds, “America Online (A.O.L.) thought that there was enough of this value in the Huffington Post, as they purchased the company for $315 million U.S. in 2011.” (Tech Boomers, 2015, para. 4).

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What’s their reader/viewer share?

The Huffington Post receives around 15.6 million page views per weekday. The average viewing duration is around 2 minutes and seven seconds. It is highly trafficked in 82.87% in the United States (Similar Web, 2018, para. 3).

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Is there a particular story that “made” this news venue particular popular?

There is no particular story that helped launch the Huffington Post. Because this site was more of a blogger based site in the beginning, the founder didn’t care who all was on it as long as they were heard and reasonable. Inc. mentions Arianna Huffington saying, “In our first week, we had postings from Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Larry David, Gary Hart, John Cusack, and Walter Cronkite.” (McGinn, 2010, para. 11).

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Was there a story that this news venue is particular well known for scooping?

There is no story that is particularly well known for scooping, but it is known to be a left sided blog spot. The Britannica Encyclopedia mentions, “It is free to users and generates revenue from advertising. The site originally featured blogs from unpaid bloggers drawn from the worlds of politics, entertainment, and academia; by 2018 it had some 100,000 such contributors.” (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d., para. 2).

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How does the news site frame itself?

Recently the Huffington Post has started to re brand itself by shortening their name and calling themselves the Huffpost. NiemanLab also mentions, “It’s also redesigning its site to fully embrace these punny splashes across social platforms and to better accommodate the habits and desires of its readership, which Polgreen is hoping to make more loyal and engaged.” (Wang, 2017, para. 3).

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How is it perceived (conservative/liberal/moderate/completely unreliable/well-respected

for fairness/etc)?

The Media Bias/Fact Check states, “These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation.” (Media Bias/Fact Check, n.d., para. 1). They are more liberal than other websites such as BuzzFeed, but may get this side from the strong loaded words they use in their posts.

DAY 1: November 5, 2018