The Huffington Post

{{significantly problematic}}[[File:HuffPostLogo.jpg|right|165px|thumb|Logo]]
{{media}}
{{cquote|''The Huffington Post''... is never quite so happy as when it’s hyperventilating|||''Time'' magazine<ref>[http://science.time.com/2012/11/20/a-mars-announcement-for-the-history-books/ A Mars Announcement ‘for the History Books’? Not So Fast], ''Time''</ref>}}

'''''The Huffington Post''''' (named after its founder, Arianna Huffington, a [[left-wing]] activist and 
socialist
 socialite), or "'''HuffPo''',"{{efn|Or "HuffPoo."}} is a large online "newspaper" and blog site, and a good example of [[moonbat]]tery in action, mixed with sideboobery<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/sideboob/ Side Boob Central!]</ref> and ''some'' reasonable [[left-wing]] journalism. It was essentially a left-wing  counter to sites such as the [[Drudge Report]] — although both Huffington and Drudge had much of their techie work done by the same person, [[Andrew Breitbart]], who went on to launch [[Breitbart.com|his own awful news aggregator site]]. Another co-founder would go on to launch ''BuzzFeed''.

Besides its relentless promotion of [[quackery]] and [[spiritualism]], the site is known for blurring the lines between [[journalism]] and [[public relations]]. Its "Sponsor Generated Content" pages are very thinly veiled [[advertisement]]s dressed up as news articles.  To be fair, advertisements masquerading as news stories have begun appearing with increased regularity on sites across the political spectrum, as ad-blocking software becomes nearly ubiquitous among more profitable demographics, although HuffPost was certainly at the forefront of this underhanded practice.  Another means of boosting profit for HuffPo is its heavy reliance on unpaid bloggers to generate content for the site.<ref>[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/12/us-huffingtonpost-lawsuit-idUSBRE8BB1BM20121212 Unpaid bloggers lose bid to revive Huffington Post case], Reuters</ref>

The HuffPo has been named the "Most Powerful Blog" by ''[[The Observer]]''<ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/09/blogs The world's 50 most powerful blogs], ''The Guardian''</ref> and is also the most popular blog on the web.<ref>[http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/blogs Top 15 Most Popular Blogs]</ref>

==Arianna's political odyssey==
Arianna Huffington supported the [[Newt Gingrich]]-led [[Republican Party]] takeover of the [[U.S.]] [[Congress]] in 1994, and Republican presidential candidate [[Bob Dole]] in [[1996 U.S. Presidential Election|1996]].  She was married to Michael Huffington, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the [[U.S. Senate]].  

An advocate of campaign finance reform, her 2000 book ''How to Overthrow the Government'' caught her right in the middle of a swing from right to left.  In the [[2000 U.S. Presidential Election|2000 election]], she at first supported [[John McCain]] in the Republican primaries, then [[Green Party]] candidate [[Ralph Nader]] in the general election.  Shortly thereafter, she became active in efforts to lobby for energy efficient cars and [[renewable energy|alternative fuels]].  She filed as an independent candidate for governor in the 2003 [[California]] recall election; shortly before the election, she dropped out and endorsed the [[Democratic Party]] candidate Cruz Bustamante.  This point marked the effective end of her brief sojourn as a political independent, and since then she has been aligned with the Democrats and supported [[John Kerry]] and [[Barack Obama]] for president.

==I don't know ''what'' you're talking about==
The truth is not in them. HuffPo ran a long article condemning [[ChristWire]]'s piece "Is My Husband Gay?" as [[Poe's Law|a serious work]]. When they were busted having fallen for a [[satire]], they quietly changed the article without notice... then tried complaining to the ''Atlantic Wire'' for misquoting them.<ref>[http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Satirical-Christian-Site-Hoodwinks-the-Huffington-Post-4766/ Satirical Christian Site Hoodwinks the Huffington Post], ''The Atlantic''</ref> (The magazine refused to budge.)

==Woo==
{{Main|Woo}}
HuffPo suffers the (unfortunately common) media [[delusion]] that [[science]] works like [[politics]]. Due to this, it is known for shamelessly pushing [[pseudoscience]] and [[woo]], and has been caught deliberately lying about doing so.<ref>[http://scienceblogs.com/primatediaries/2010/07/huffington_post_is_afraid_of_c.php Smoking] [http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/07/07/huffpo_antiscience/index.html gun]</ref>

Most infamously, it is — or at least was (see below) — known as a hotbed of [[alternative medicine]] and [[Anti-vaccination movement|anti-vaccination activism]].<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-frank-lipman/swine-flu-what-to-do_b_286245.html "Swine Flu: What To Do?"], HuffPo</ref> Within weeks of its founding, the ''Post'' was quickly flooded by anti-vaccination activists, priming the pump for more woo to come. David Gorski at [[Science-Based Medicine]] described 2009 as the year when "rank quackery" emerged in the site, arguing that the tipping point was when [[alt-med]] [[crank]] Patricia Fitzgerald became the 
Weirdness Editor
 "Wellness Editor."<ref>[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-huffington-posts-war-on-science-revisited/ ''The Huffington Post'''s War on Medical Science: A Brief History], Science-Based Medicine</ref> It was widely critiqued by [[science]] bloggers for this stance, with [[PZ Myers]] encouraging a [[boycott]].<ref>[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/09/die_huffpo_die.php Die Huffpo Die], ''Pharyngula''</ref> It was also criticized by ''[[Bad Astronomy]]'', who described its science/medicine coverage as "almost all alt-med, all the time."<ref>[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/09/28/huffpo-still-pushing-antivax-nonsense/ HuffPo still pushing antivax nonsense], ''Discover Magazine''</ref>

Other winners who have written for the site include:

*[[New Age]] guru [[Deepak Chopra]], who — unfortunately — needs no introduction, wrote several articles for the site in its early years.
*[[Self help]] guru and pseudo-"[[Native American]]" spirituality rip-off peddler [[James Arthur Ray]].<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-arthur-ray/conscious-capitalism-taki_b_193743.html "Conscious Capitalism: Taking Actions That Are Good for Self, Others and the Entire World"], HuffPo</ref>
*John Morton, current spiritual director of John-Roger's [[Movement for Inner Spiritual Awareness]], a [[New Age]] group. (Arianna Huffington is herself a longtime follower of John-Roger's MISA.)
*Alternative medicine woo-meister [[Andrew Weil]].<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md Dr. Andrew Weil] on HuffPo</ref>
*Thoroughly hysteric [[anti-nuclear movement|anti-nuclear]] advocate [[Helen Caldicott]].<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/helen-caldicott/the-election_b_775116.html "The Election"], HuffPo ("Indeed, will this election introduce a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zNjQecyjE8&feature=youtu.be&t=4s political climate conducive to a Sarah Palin presidency in 2 years?"])</ref>
*Alec Baldwin with the pseudoscientific [[Tooth Fairy Project]].<ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/the-human-costs-of-nuclea_b_533516.html "The Human Costs of Nuclear Power"], HuffPo</ref>
*Notorious [[homeopath]] and internet [[troll]] [[Dana Ullman]].

Of late, however, [[reality]]-based writers and commenters have started pushing back against the woo-meisters,<ref>Keith, JJ. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jj-keith/vaccines_b_3829948.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular "I'm Coming Out… as Pro-Vaccine"], HuffPo</ref> with some of them taken to linking to [[RationalWiki]]'s skeptical articles. In 2019, editor-in-chief Lydia Polgreen announced that the site would be removing dozens of anti-vaccine blogs due to the threat they posed to public safety, following the lead of YouTube, Facebook, and Amazon, after being criticized for hosting such content.<ref>Trotter, J. K. [https://www.insider.com/huffpost-published-anti-vaccine-articles-by-celebrities-2019-6 "Looking for anti-vaccine conspiracy theories? You can find them on HuffPost."] ''Insider'', 21 June 2019 (recovered 14 July 2019).</ref><ref>Polgreen, Lydia. [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/letter-from-the-editor-vaccines_n_5d0cefd6e4b0aa375f4ba1c6?9ok Letter From the Editor: Why We Are Removing Anti-Vaccine Blogs."] ''HuffPo'', 21 June 2019 (recovered 14 July 2019).</ref> Which is nice.

==The Huffington Post Union of Bloggers==
{{expand}}
The domain [http://www.hpub.org www.hpub.org] was formed in 2010 by bloggers "dissatisfied with the editorial policies of Arriana Huffington". The original domain was www.huffingtonpostunionofbloggers.com; however, after The Huffington Post was sold to AOL Time Warner they were sued<ref>http://domainnamewire.com/2012/02/27/huffington-post-union-of-bloggers/</ref> and lost control of the domain and reverted to www.hpub.org.

In 2011, the bloggers chose to sue Huffington Post, arguing they had a right to a portion of the money AOL paid because their contributions had helped build Huffington Post. The case was ultimately thrown out because "no one forced" the bloggers to repeatedly provide their work with no expectation of being paid, and said they got what they bargained for when their works were published.

The website itself has devolved into a bed of [[conspiracy]] blog posts including [[Truther|9/11 Truthers]], ISIS/terrorists are fake conspiracies, and various other issues that come from allowing anybody to write a blog on a website.

==White House ban==

In 2025 the Trump administration issued a ban on major media outlets from the White House press pool. The media outlets that were banned from Trump-related events are the Associated Press, ''Reuters'' and ''The Huffington Post'', which called the ban a violation of the [[First Amendment]] right to freedom of the press.<ref>[https://www.reuters.com/world/us/white-house-bars-ap-reuters-other-media-covering-trump-cabinet-meeting-2025-02-26/  White House bars AP, Reuters and other media from covering Trump cabinet meeting], ''Reuters'', 26 February 2025.</ref>

==External links==
*[http://www.huffingtonpost.com The Huffington Post]
*[http://www.salon.com/2009/07/30/huffington_post/ The Huffington Post is Crazy About Your Health], ''Salon''
== Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Huffington Post, The}}
[[Category:American media]]
[[Category:Anti-vaccination movement]]
[[Category:California]]
[[Category:Media]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience promoting organizations]]
[[Category:Rightists who turned left with age]]

Categories: American media, Anti-vaccination movement, California, Media, Pseudoscience promoting organizations, Rightists who turned left with age