HuffPost is a sad ghost of its former self, and Stein is smart to make his exit ahead of the inevitable re-arranging of the deck chairs.
Are they still up to date on news about vaccine dangers, the benefits of meditation, and quantum healing?
Ever since the election their views have been way down.
Sam stein to me was never the most effective tv pundit: a not too forceful, more to the left, less douchey Halperin. Never was able to muster the righteous indignance of Howard Fineman, for instance.
But I gotta imagine that his departure will further HP’s slide. Those clickbait headlines (“Maher Unmasked! exclaimation points!”), those shoddy analyses (“up yours, Nate Silver! She’s Got This!”), the emphasis on stories better left to E!. I don’t
know where they went wrong.
Chasing $$$$$$$$$$ instead of chasing news.
And they worked overtime to destroy the commentariat that had developed of the years.
And the decline continues…from HuffPost to…PuffPost.
Watch out TMZ
I like Stein a lot and this is certainly a loss for HuffPo, but they lost me back during the election when they kept posting dishonest, delusional opinion pieces from HA Goodman. They were the editorial version of fake news.
Never was a HuffPost fan.
Ya gotta stay nimble if you want to stay employed.
Never been a big fan of HuffPo - its like they can’t decide what kind of organization they want to be, a serious news org or more like Buzzfeed. Choose one path, do it well - which is not what they have done.
The best that could be said for HP the past few years is, they sure as heck put out / aggregated a lot of content. My personal fave was the various “lifestyle” articles which invariably had as their photo, a picture of “woman laughing while eating salad” variety – ie, a blinding white background / bedsheets and some visually correct woman ™ smiling / laughing / angry / etc. from shutterstock.
I was always startled the site didn’t realize, that photo schtick was becoming old, fast.
Plus I am sure many of us could say tons about many of the writers themselves. It seems it was a desitination for mediocre “writer / (fill in the blank) / busy mom / (fill in the blank).”
Deleted the site from my links,they do not have any long form or breaking news reporting worth a damn any more, which used to be the saving grace.
And now I give to you, a smiling woman with vegetables, in memory of Huffington Post:
The ironic thing is that BuzzFeed is now a serious news org (while still having all their silly shit). Even with the departure of Andrew Kaczynski and McKay Coppins, they continue to break a lot of big stories. When was the last time you saw HuffPo do any actual investigative journalism?
They went wrong when Arianna decided it was time for her to personally cash out on the efforts of others, take the $370+ million and run. Many of the people who built that site were shafted in the sale to AOL. She was and is shameless, appearing back on the site when she has something new to hawk.
Only when Arianna has a book to sell. When there was a new article every day about the benefits of sleep, a topic on which, coincidentally Arianna had just published a book, I decided to leave once and for all.
On rare occasions, I checked back last fall and saw H.A. Goodman featured on the front page berating anyone who wasn’t a Bernie supporter and telling them to VOTE STEIN.
Good for Sam! He’ll have a lot more fun and better opportunities at Daily Beast.
ETA - I see that @thunderclapnewman and @pluckyinky already made the same points with less words. They have the best words!
I know I’m in the minority on this, but I really liked the fact that HuffPo had a variety of different “news”. I liked the fact that I could catch up on politics and find 10 Great Summer Casserole Recipes as well as the latest on the upcoming season of Game of Thrones. I liked that it was all in one place, but as I said earlier, the HA Goodman thing really bothered me as did their move to become a news channel where you had to watch the video instead of reading an article. I don’t want to watch a video. I hope they retool and rebound because I do like the concept just not where it’s been going of late.
I agree.
Nobody does clickbait headline like Sam. He taught me to always check the byline before reading.
Those guys both did tremendous work on the Panama Canal. People are noticing. Frederick Douglass was impressed.
It’s no longer my second or even third news click. It’s now like fifth or sixth, right after I check the gaming news on MassivelyOP.
They lost me well before that once their comment moderators deleted my moderate analytic posts. And their war on everything Obama was doing especially with Dodd Frank pretending that their critique of it was from the “left” when of course the multimillionaire Ariana was calling the shots on that one.
Heintz is still the best ketchup!