HuffPo Starts Investigative Journo Venture

Journalism faces a challenge, but hardly a disaster

(NEWSER) - We know it’s coming, that day when print newspapers cease to exist, but it won’t be this year, right? Maybe, maybe not, Michael Hirschorn writes in the Atlantic, and it wouldn’t necessarily be a disaster. The New York Times is in trouble—it could default on $400 million in debt come May. “Sooner than most of us think,” the Times will be digital-only, Hirschorn predicts. More»

(NEWSER) - Before newspapers held sway over politicians and maintained monopolies under federal anti-trust exemptions, they were a service people were willing to pay for, Michael Kinsley writes in the Washington Post. Even if “technology is on the verge of removing some traditionally vital organs of the body politic,” they will be replaced by what people want, and want to pay for. “If the New York Times disappears,” he says, “there will still be news.” More»

Real estate a major factor in sale of 71 papers last year

(NEWSER) - Despite plunging revenue and circulation figures, plenty of people in America are still buying daily newspapers—lock, stock, and valuable headquarters. Some 71 daily papers were sold last year, and while some investors see buying a paper as a civic duty, others view it as a way to turn a quick profit, especially since newspapers tend to own large buildings in prime downtown locations, the New York Times finds. More»

Anne Sinclair will run new site

(NEWSER) - Well, this is one way to stir up attention for your new website: Hire Dominique Strauss-Kahn's wife as its editor. It seems Anne Sinclair will head up the Huffington Post's new French edition, the New York Times reports, as she is listed as editorial director on an invitation to the news conference introducing the venture. New York's Daily Intel blog notes that Sinclair was once a "Barbara Walters-type television journalist" in France; she hosted an interview show from 1984 until 1997. More»

The 60-year-old is a 'modern-day courtesan,' writes Hephzibah Anderson

(NEWSER) - "Legendarily coiffed, she's as fond of girlish ruffles and racy black lace as she is of pantsuits—and is not above flaunting her yoga-toned limbs." If you think that sentence describes, oh, Gwen Stefani, you'd be wrong. She is ... Arianna Huffington, sex symbol. "Yes, you read that right. Sex symbol," writes Hephzibah Anderson in her new AdWeek column, "Sex and the Media." In it, Anderson tracks Huffington's success from the late '60s, when she was Arianna Stassinopoulos at Cambridge, a "tall, glam Greek" in an Alfa Romeo. More»