Huffington: There must be resignations at The News of the World

From an interview at AOL HQ on Tuesday evening; because of the escalation of this story it didn’t make it into our newspaper. Huffington still makes some interesting points.

Huffington Post founder and media entrepreneur Arianna Huffington, pictured, has called for senior resignations and “accountability” at The News of the World over the hacking of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s mobile phone.

Speaking on the eve of the launch yesterday of the British operation of her vastly successful US news website and blogging platform The Huffington Post, she said there should be “consequences at the leadership level of the News of the World”.

“People cannot hide behind sending someone else to jail, there have to be higher consequences, resignations, firing whatever, whoever was ultimately responsible,” Ms Huffington told The Independent.

Among the bloggers earmarked to launch her British website earlier this week were Tony Blair, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Sarah Brown, along with comedians such as Ricky Gervais.

“This is a huge story in the US,” Ms Huffington added. “It was one of our biggest stories earlier this week. This is not the first time. There is a sense that both the UK and US are going through times of crisis. When these things emerge at a time of crisis, there is even less tolerance for them. I think it is important there is an investigation, to get to all the facts, and there should be accountability, not just for the investigator.”

Ms Huffington’s site, claimed the entrepreneur, was about to celebrate a “milestone” of 100m comments made on its US website huffingtonpost.com. She said in order to comply with this country’s libel laws the British site would employ a mixture of advanced technology and human moderators to prevent ad hominem attacks on its blogging stable.

The entrepreneur said part of her “editorial vision” for the British site was a focus on “working families”, in order to put “flesh and blood on the data”, with dedicated reporters committed to reporting on issues such as “students who will be graduating from college who can’t get jobs”. “This is not a Right-Left issue,” she said. “It is something any democracy knows you need to address this crisis affecting millions of working families”.

Huffington pledged her commitment to free online journalism. “The future is free,” she said, “the future is the linked economy. At the heart of our DNA is engagement. We stay on the story and then our readers send us their stories and then that’s where the fascination begins”.

On the selection of Mr Blair as one of the bloggers to launch the site, she said: “Huffpost is a platform available to anyone with anything interesting to say provided they clear our quality bar. Some of them are known and some of them are not known”.

Picture:AP

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• Oldbailey1

  And how did Blair ‘clear the quality bar ‘? By limboing under it?

• Citizen Bidet

  In the light of the title of this article I’d have left such discredited, Murdoch-owned and tainted, politicians as Bliar and Jeremy (yes, I’ll take Cable’s portfolio and hand over BSkyB) Hunt off of my blogging list if I were Huffington.
  Not an auspicious start!

• Dossinginderry

  The Sunday Sun has a certain ring!

• Old Git Tom

  She & her site are dodgy. Alex Jones’ effusions are far more interesting & content-rich – the difference b/ween ripe stilton & mousetrap-quality gone mouldy.     OGT

• tomkyle

  She and her site are not dodgy. That asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence: your prejudicial assertion is dismissed. I have read the Huffington Post since its inception and is still the best news aggregator with contributions from a kaleidoscope of views, although the overall direction is soft leftist. She is open and while quite the self-promoter, is a good and intelligent observer of the American scene in particular and global issues in general. Where do you get off calling people ‘dodgy’ and their work ‘dodgy’ and expect to be taken seriously. You’re not, I see.

• tomkyle

  Yeah, but the breadth of commentary is for you to peruse and judge. Alternatively, ignore the usual suspects and enjoy the more intelligent and honest comments of which there are a multiplicity on the Huff Post.

• negrodamus2

  Huffington is a douche*** and everything she has ever said is sounds of an imbecile.  However AOL is even a bigger douche*** for giving her more than a dollar.  I personally would have given her nothing because she is a imbecile.

• Old Git Tom

  She emerged from Oxford a vociferous, right-wing, neocon-cum-Thatcherite. I find her conversion to ‘liberal’ values on the road to New York distinctly dodgy. As I hinted, you will have to compare her site with Alex Jones’, an effective, fearless, & radical exposer of US political & economic degeneration. You talk like a consumerist, if you prefer your truth soft & gentle, rather than hard & on-target. But maybe you’d be happier with Huff-puff?    OGT

• Nick Beck

  My comment is graphical – http://youcannotbeserio.us