Which Way, L.A.?
AOL Buys Huffington Post, Newspapers Look for Consolidation
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AOL Buys Huffington Post, Newspapers Look for Consolidation

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The five-year old website, the Huffington Post, has been bought by the Internet veteran AOL for a price of $315 million. Arianna Huffington will control all AOL's Internet content.  Will the reporting be original? Will the writers be paid? Will AOL reflect Huffington's left-of-center point of view? Is it all about quality news coverage or a bigger audience? We talk with Huffington and others, and hear about the fate of Southern California newspapers in the age of the Internet.  On our rebroadcast of today's To the Point, Tahrir Square filled with protesters again today. We look at the role of the Internet in the ongoing challenge to Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak.

Banner image: The Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington poses with AOL at the Maxim Party Powered by Motorola Xoom at Centennial Hall at Fair Park on February 5, 2011 in Dallas, Texas. Photo: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for AOL

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AOL, the Huffington Post and News in Southern California ()

Internet-access pioneer AOL has been losing customers. Last year, it posed a net loss of almost $800 million. Now, AOL has purchased the Huffington Post.  In just five years, the Post has become one of the top ten news sites on the web, with 20 million unique monthly visitors and profits of $30 million last year. The price was $300 million in cash and $15 million in AOL stock. But Arianna Huffington won't go away. She will be president and editor-in-chief of a new group inside AOL, overseeing some 700 editorial employees. The age of the Internet has been cruel to traditional newspapers, and it's caught up with the LA Times, the Orange County Register and suburban dailies including the Daily News.  A group of hedge funds now owns most of their assets and the word in the business is "consolidation."

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Egypt, the Internet and Political Change ()

The government of Egypt has promised reforms, but protesters are still saying that Mubarak has to go. Today's crowd in Cairo was one of the biggest so far. We speak with a reporter on the ground in Cairo as well as observers in the US and in Egypt.

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Underwriters

Which Way L.A.? is made possible in part by the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, which supports study and research into policy issues of the Los Angeles region.

 

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