On blogging

Ken Auletta writes in the January 24, 2011 issue of The New Yorker that while print newspapers have struggled or folded and scores of journalists have lost their jobs, AOL has been hiring fleets of newswriters and expanding its online news and blogging operations. Today’s news is that AOL has purchased Huffington Post, and its founder, Arianna Huffington, will become editor-in-chief for all of AOL’s content sites. The Atlantic has reprinted the announcement Huffington’s team sent their bloggers. It states:

Your posts will have an even bigger impact on the national and global conversation.  That's the only real change you'll notice -- more people reading what you wrote.

Far from changing the Huffington Post's editorial approach, our culture, or our mission, it will be like stepping off a fast-moving train and onto a supersonic jet.  We're still traveling toward the same destination, with the same people at the wheel, and with the same goals, but we're now going to get there much, much faster.

Alexis Madrigal, senior editor at The Atlantic, responds to that message:

Which may be a nice way of saying: hey bloggers, don't expect to make any money from your writing just because the company got bought for $315 million.

And on the subject of blogging, thanks to the MFA students who sent us posts from the AWP conference the past few days. They managed to convey the sense of enormity of offerings at the conference while distilling and describing in depth a few very meaningful experiences. I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I did.