Arianna Huffington vs. Sam Zell

Now, that’s an interesting battle. The UK’s Guardian newspaper reports that Huffington revealed plans to have Huffington Post launch local news sites in dozens of US cities. The first is to be Chicago, home base of Zell’s flagship Chicago Tribune, not to mention the spunky rival Chicago Sun-Times.

Huffington was on the other side of the pond to speak at Guardian News and Media’s Future of Journalism conference. “We are aspiring to be a newspaper in that we want to be covering all news, not just political blogging the way we began,” Huffington was quoted as saying. Huffington Post is working on its third round of financing and she plans to use that new cash to expand the company’s reporting team.

Despite staff cuts, the Trib should still have a numerical advantage in working journalists. Huffington Post initially plans to have one editor overseeing the Chicago news site, which will aggregate news, sports, crime, arts and business news from different local sources, the founder told the Guardian conference.

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