Progressive Intrigue

Arianna kills The New Yorker

I am just plain fascinated by the story that’s detailed now on Vanity Fare about the lawsuit against Ariana Huffington brought  by Peter Daou and James Boyce.   I remember when Ariana came to one of the early FDL book salons in search of progressive credentials. She even friended me on Face book at the time.  She was–at best–a C lister then and I don’t even think I rate a letter even now.  Peter Daou, of course, is familiar to any of us that were remotely connected to the Hillary Blogosphere or campaign back in the day.  Peter is just one huckava nice guy among all of his other attributes.  There evidently was some meeting in 2004 that all attended where Ariana supposedly walked away with the idea for HuffPo–an extremely valuable piece of blogosphere web estate–leaving the others out in the cold.  Six years later, there’s a law suit.  The entire thing seems made for a movie of the week and it’s drawing some flak for getting inspiration from the Facebook movie.

That meeting had a lot of witnesses …err.. attendees. Some of them are the A listers of progressive causes.   The idea was to come up with a Democratic version of the Drudge report. Celebs reported to be at the table include David Geffen, Larry David, and Norman Lear.  Oh, the casting possibilities just fill the mind!  It is reminiscent of the founding of Facebook and parallels to the story and movie fill the Vanity Fare missive.  Both of the plaintiffs on the suit have blogged for HuffPo at one time or another which also makes the situation quite tangled up and blue.

Wired–as with the weirdness surrounding the Wikileaks–figures prominently in the tale also. Dauo evidently reached the Rubicon when Andrew Breithbart claimed the HuffPo nativity scene as his own.  Huffington said since Breithbart had not attended the 2004 discussion, he had nothing to do with the inception of HuffPo.  During the discussion, she did not mention Daou or  Boyce.  She mentioned Larry David and wife.  She talked about Andrew Sorkin.  Meg Ryan even made a cameo appearance in the narrative.  Lots of A Listers got their plug plugged.   No Boyce.  No Daou.

Daou and Boyce say that they were the ones who conceived of “a Democratic equivalent of the Drudge Report”—a shorthand description of what the Huffington Post is all about—and called it http://www.fourteensixty.com (for the number of days between presidential elections). According to their 15-page November 14, 2004, memorandum about “1460,” which Boyce gave Huffington before the December 3 meeting, the core objective of the Web site was to “use the potential of the Internet to the fullest extent possible to continue the momentum started during the [2004 presidential] campaign and re-organize the Democratic Party from the outside in, not the inside out.” Daou and Boyce say that they presented their general thoughts about 1460 at the December 3 meeting. (Full disclosure: Boyce has worked as a consultant for Vanity Fair.)

So, Huffington is now an alternative media doyenne who makes appearances on all the right Main Stream News Channels, talk shows, and panels. (I dare you to get her to friend you now!!)  Also, there’s the little matter of how much HuffPo is worth.  Asset pricing a website is always tricky business but given their traffic ratings, it’s probably worth more than The New York Times right now and probably The Washington Post.  Plus, it doesn’t come with all that old timey print baggage like presses, labor unions, and delivery trucks.   Well, to be more specific see The Vanity Fare article estimate.  Yup, I can hear your whistle right over the cable modem.

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