Arianna Huffington, the charismatic and self-invented founder of the Huffington Post, is stepping down as the site’s editor-in-chief to build a new site around the concepts of health and wellness.
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Arianna Huffington, pictured at the 2013 Vanity Fair Oscar party, is stepping down as editor-in-chief. “But it became clear that this was an illusion as Thrive went from an idea to a reality, with investors, staff and offices”.
Many Huffington Post writers and contributors, however, are unpaid, and Huffington has argued that their visibility on a site with more than 100 million unique visitors a month is invaluable.
Huffington co-founded the news site with entrepreneur Jonah Peretti-founder of Buzzfeed-and Kenneth Lerer. But its tactics were widely imitated by other news startups and traditional media companies that are eager to boost online traffic. The Huffington Post, for nearly five months in late 2015, covered Trump as entertainment news rather than politics. Its domestic editorial staff, now about 350, would outnumber most other US newsrooms.
The publication won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 and has expanded globally in the last several years.
Ms Huffington made the announcement about her imminent departure on Twitter, where she has more than 2.3 million followers. Although her contract with the Huffington Post stipulated that Huffington remain with the company until 2019, the contract allowed her to launch the new company. Her presence will be sorely missed, but her role at the company had become a bit vague, as the media outlet was acquired by AOL in 2011, who was in turn acquired by Verizon previous year.
Huffington has written recent books about health and sleep issues, and her start-up, Thrive Global, was originally intended as an extension of her work in these areas, with a focus on improving employee health. Namely- Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder, and The Sleep Revolution.
Born July 15, 1950, Arianna Huffington has been an integral member of Huffington Post who has helped build it into what it is today. But rumors swirled about her role after AOL was sold to Verizon past year for $4.4 billion.
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It’s Poised to Launch In November 2016: Thrive Global will launch “after the election in November” according to the release. Lerer and Hippeau have a long working relationship with Huffington. Yahoo’s media tendencies might clash with another Verizon-owned media company, The Huffington Post.
