A Blogger Is Bounced From the Huffington Post
The New York Times
By MARIA ASPAN
Published: June 26, 2006
The Huffington Post, the popular news and blogging Web site, again found itself the subject of commentary last week when one of its bloggers was fired after accusing a site staff member of posting negative comments on his blog entries.
In March, the site began carrying the blog of Dr. Peter Rost, a former Pfizer executive who filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the drug company. Dr. Rost recently noticed that some prominently placed negative comments on his blog entries had been written by a user named "yacomink." In a June 20 post, Dr. Rost revealed that the person making sarcastic comments was Andy Yaco-Mink, the Huffington Post's technology manager. Dr. Rost's entry included Mr. Yaco-Mink's Internet protocol address and photos.
On June 22, Arianna Huffington, the site's editor, announced that she was withdrawing Dr. Rost's password, effectively firing him. (Mr. Yaco-Mink kept his job because the site had not had a policy forbidding employees from posting, although that policy was instituted on Friday.)
In an interview, Ms. Huffington said that her editorial team had discussed blocking Dr. Rost from the site more than a month ago because of the frequently personal nature of his posts. The editors made the final decision after they said Dr. Rost did not listen to their concerns on the post about Mr. Yaco-Mink.
"It seemed like his blog was becoming about personal grudges," Ms. Huffington said. "That would have been no problem if the posts were interesting."
Dr. Rost responded on his personal blog (peterrost.blogspot.com). "I thought that if anyone could accept being challenged, it would be The Huffington Post," he said in an interview. "But the first time anyone even hints, the censors go into overdrive and this liberal bastion becomes something similar to the Kremlin."
The Huffington Post drew criticism in March for publishing a fabricated George Clooney blog. But for Jeff Jarvis, who runs the blog BuzzMachine.com, the Dr. Rost affair is a much less serious matter.
"The Clooney episode was different because her actions weren't transparent," Mr. Jarvis said. "Dr. Rost was within his rights to criticize The Huffington Post on The Huffington Post, but it's still Arianna's space." MARIA ASPAN
6 comments:
"Mr. Yaco-Mink kept his job because the site had not had a policy forbidding employees from posting"
But they obviously did have a policy about posting outside your area of expertise, right? And a policy about picking on their home grown trolls as well? And most certainly, a policy about embarrassing them in public!
FIRE the creepy Minky!
Harry can go screw himself. He is in bed with Arianna and would never dream of going against Ms. Arianna.
You have to realize that Harry is part of the liberal elite who feel you should do what they say and not what they do. Harry's position is that Arianna is a bud and you never question a bud.
Especially one with serious connections. Not that Harry isn't famous or well off himself, especially since he is the voice of so many Simpson's characters and it was recently announced the voices would get a raise to ONE MILLION a month to do the voices of their characters on The Simpons.
BUT it does shoot his credibility down when he writes now. Perhaps a few posts asking why he sold his soul for Arianna and refuses to put her on the spot in his Eat The Press blogs? Or is he taking cues from Tony Snow now?
A QUESTION DOC?
What page was the NYT write up on? I don't get it out here in Solvang, CA (Santa Barbara) so I have no access to it.
rosethejet
Here's the link for the NYT article, but you have to register and log in to read it. It's free to register and I've been registered for two years now and I haven't gotten spammed once because of it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/technology/26huff.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
You don't have to register. Just go to http://www.bugmenot.com , key in the sight's name (nytimes.com) and it'll give you a valid username and password. This works for most sites that require you to give a username and password. Works great!
I got banned yet again for posting what I did on page 1 of the comments at the following blog entry (as censorship is still very much alive at Huffingtonpost.com):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/06/27/al-qaeda-jihadi-textbook_n_23892.html
bannedagain10
At least 25% of my posts do not see the light of day on Huffingtonpost.com. I know that I am writing this about 8 months after the last post on this topic on Dr. Rost's sight...I found this discussion by googling "huffingtonpost" and "banned" and "censoring" to see if anyone else was experiencing what I was experiencing. Someone should start an "alternative universe" site called "HuffingtonPostUncensored" in which posters can put their banned comments on.
tkondaks@cox.net
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