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Mary Katharine Ham, in the Weekly Standard, is the latest to blast Huffington Post for its practice of drumming up hits with NSFW pictures of naked and semi-naked women:
After all, The Huffington Post is run by a stand-up, professional, liberal, feminist woman—Arianna Huffington. Surely, her site would be irreproachable on such matters.
Hmm. One thing I've noticed about Arianna Huffington is that she tends to downplay the outrage over sex scandals, even Republican scandals like Mark Sanford's, more than I would like. I'm entertaining the possibility that this is a principled position--Huffington simply does not get censorious about sex, nudity, or even marital infidelity. I don't know if that makes her post-feminist or pre-feminist. But I think it gets her off on the charge of hypocrisy when she runs slideshows of celebrity breast implants. If you can find an example of Arianna getting huffy about objectification of women (or men) or sexual shenanigans--even Republican shenanigans--then I'm wrong. But I don't think you will. (First place I'd check: Clinton and Lewinsky.)
P.S.: Another typical argument against HuffPo goes like this: It's OK to have a news site, and it's OK to have a site for naked celebrities. But political sites and news sites shouldn't have naked celebrities.
"I'd argue that the kind of Internet traffic HuffPo trafficks in is below a political site of the caliber it purports to be, period.-"--Ham
"So, what do nipple slips and boob jobs have to do with liberal politics?"--Amanda Hess, Washington City Paper
This sort of argument seems open to the response Robert Nozick made when defending doctors who are in it for the money (as opposed to healing the sick). They're not doctors, you say? OK. Let's call them schmoctors. They are fulfilling the Aristotelian purpose of schmoctoring, which is to make a lot of money by treating people. Similarly, let's not call Huffington Post a "news" site, let's call it ... I don't know, a "views" site. Not opinion & news but opinion & news & newsy nudity! Sort of like a laundromat/bar or bookstore/coffeeshop. If that gives Arianna a competitive advantage over her more prudish, anti-objectification competitors ... well, maybe that's where the market will go. It's not like she's alone in pursuing this ... hybrid business model. So far, it seems relatively harmless to me. (If the site glorified boorish or worse behavior by men, which was the big problem with the Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson Supebowl incident, that would be different.). ...
P.P.S.: What's worse: funding your journalistic efforts by showing Beyonce nip slips, or funding your journalistic efforts by preying on the fears and ambitions of parents who'd like to use their financial resources to gain an advantage in the allegedly meritocratic college rat race? Discuss. ... 6:22 P.M.
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Latino voters overwhelmingly think health care should have priority over immigration reform. Only "14% mentioned immigration as the top issue." And if no immigration bill passes by the 2010 election, "42% would think it´s understandable" (while "28% would say the president reneged on his promise"). I don't see how that adds up to the "dire" consequences La Opinion foresees for Dems among Latinos if "comprehensive" immigration reform doesn't happen (especially if health care does). Seems more like the opposite: even among Latinos, Dems have some room to punt on the issue. ... 6:20 P.M.
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Reality Show Idea of the Day--from Dish Rag. "The Gate Crashers." As long as it's not just the Salahis. ... I'd tune in for the episode where secretly uninfluential faux-intellectuals try to crash the Worst Party Ever! ... 6:17 P.M.
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