THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
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It's very tough to monetize communities that rely on traffic generated from search (one-third of HuffPo's total) and one-off referrals, such as those from Facebook. Advertisers care deeply about page views--the number of times a visitor views a complete page--and HuffPo's lately haven't kept pace with the doubling of comments on its site. Since May monthly page views have flatlined at roughly 450 million.
That trend discourages advertisers, and suggests problems with the types of visitors to the site and the caliber of its content, which isn't pulling people through an increasing number of pages. Its executives like to tout the site's "high-quality content"--which strains credibility given the preponderance of celebrity bloggers and Friends of Arianna. Perhaps in an effort to achieve premium status, HuffPo recently hired high-profile reporters from the New York Times and Newsweek.
Lots of HuffPo's news pages come from and link to third-party stories from traditional outlets. Former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. slammed sites like HuffPo as "parasites living off journalism produced by others." He attributed HuffPo's success to its appeal to partisan political prejudices and headlines about "titillating gossip and sex." (One wag says it's more like a frat club than a debate club.) Downie may be right about gossip and sex. Recent headlines on HuffPo's entertainment page: "Watch Naked Heidi Klum in Seal's New Video" and "Bridget Moynahan Dating McG?"
OR:
Whatever the outcome, no one can quite envision a HuffPo without its founder.
TRANSLATION: The whole ball of wax melts when the Huff leaves.