Huffington Post gets serious about political news

New media outlets are poised to make their marks in this year’s election coverage. Case in point: The Huffington Post has hired former RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen, a true Beltway insider, as Political Director and Washington Editor-At-Large.

The announcement from Arianna Huffington had the usual comment that the new hire “will be a driving force in taking HuffPost’s political coverage to the next level.” In this case, though, that’s probably right. Blogging has become a serious force and Rosen is a political heavy-hitter who can help The Huffington Post build its reputation in the 2008 election.

Her new employer says Rosen will “liaise with elected officials and Congressional leaders, coordinate coverage of the upcoming national conventions, and assist in the recruiting of political, business and cultural bloggers.”  

RBR/TVBR observation: We certainly had our policy disagreements with Hilary when she ran RIAA, but that didn’t stop us from liking her – and respecting her sharp intellect and deep understanding of how Washington works. As for the comments from some that she is not a “journalist” – hey, what about George Stephanopoulos at ABC News?

Rosen has a Rolodex (or more likely its modern electronic equivalent) that most DC reporters would kill for – and newsmakers return her calls. She had already been writing a blog for The Huffington Post and her writing is pretty interesting stuff. She is decidedly partisan, even using “we Democrats” in one recent blog post. She is an unabashed supporter of the other “Hillary” (with the double l) and rails against the current GOP administration in her blog. But we know that The Huffington Post is left-leaning (and leaning a lot), so we’re not going to expect balanced reporting there, anymore than we would expect the left to get a fair shake on NewsMax. The Internet has changed the face of reporting. People know they are getting opinionated reporting and, in many cases, that’s what they want. We hope that folks also read the opposing side occasionally and the traditional media, which have some standards for being fair and balanced (doesn’t someone use that as a slogan?), but the days are gone when a few news outlets were the only sources of information for most of the public.

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