By The Editors 5/23 11:23am

Opening Shot

Middleton.

Looking Forward

Historically, Memorial Day is a somber holiday—we all take off of work to commemorate fallen soldiers. But since we already celebrate our men in uniform on Veteran’s Day, the long weekend at the end of May is also an excuse for a bacchanal to celebrate the upcoming summer. Pools open, grills are dusted off and white tennies are spit shined for the courts.

And since this is the weekend of rebirth, what better chance for us to sit down and think about what really want out of this summer?  Read More

By Shalom Auslander 5/15 6:16pm

Thorns With Occasional Roses

(Illo: Chris Gash)

Thinking About Arianna Huffington While Hiking in the Catskills

It is May, and time to spray the doors and windows of my home. I trudge, unhappily, out to the garden shed. The insect repellent waits for me, but by the time I carry it back to the house, I’ve already decided I’m not going to spray the fucking doors or the fucking windows. It’s a beautiful day.

And yesterday, goddamn it, was City Day.

City Day is the day, every couple of weeks or so, that I take the train to New York City and wonder what God is waiting for. Read More

By Drew Grant 4/09 2:24pm

Media and Race

Taki Theodoracopulos with 'Greek Pudding' Arianna Huffington (PcM)

Taki’s Mag Founder Speaks Out on John Derbyshire Race Controversy: ‘It’s Nice to Be Light Sometimes’

“I don’t think he did anything that extraordinary, to point out what Blacks themselves point out,” Taki Theodoracopulos told The Observer over the phone this afternoon.

He was talking about National Review journalist John Derbyshire’s controversial article, “The Talk: Nonblack Version,” written for Mr. Theodoracopulos’ namesake webzine, Taki’s Mag.

Within 72 hours after its publication, the Review announced that it was “parting ways” with Mr. Derbyshire, saying that the author was using the conservative publication’s name to “to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise.” National Review‘s Editor-In-Chief Rich Lowry said the piece “lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible.”

Mr. Theodoracopulos, who called himself a “great fan” of Taki’s Mag (which is actually edited by his daughter, while dad plays the role of curator, pulling in big names from his thick Rolodex), had his own opinion of why Mr. Derbyshire was let go. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 4/09 7:47am

Corporate

aol

AOL Unloads Hundreds of Patents to Microsoft for $1 B., Arianna Huffington ‘Doesn’t See’ Power Expanded There

AOL  will sell more than 800 patents to Microsoft in exchange for $1.056 billion in cash, the company announced today. The dial-up giant retained patents of 300 “core and strategic” technologies, which it will non-exclusively license to Microsoft in the same deal.

The auction for the patents began last fall, part of the company’s long term plan to “unlock value” for shareholders. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2012, and the company says it plans to return a significant portion of the proceeds to shareholders.

Meanwhile, WWD caught AOL and Huffington Post editor Arianna Huffington at her book party for Kathy Freston (Ms. Freston introduced Ms. Huffington to her business partner Kenneth Lerer), to find out how she felt about about her growing influence at AOL. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 2/24 11:30am

Q&As

armstrong-huffington-300x165

Arianna Huffington Hung Up on New York Times Writer Andrew Goldman

New York Times Magazine writer Andrew Goldman kicked off his “Talk” with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong by revealing that Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of the AOL-owned Huffington Post, was not very pleased with her own turn in the Q&A column.

AG: After AOL purchased The Huffington Post last year, I interviewed Arianna Huffington. She hung up on me and complained to my editors. So I was pleasantly surprised that you agreed to this interview.

TA: I read the interview when it came out, and it looked like it was rough. We don’t hold grudges around here.

Back in April, Mr. Goldman and Ms. Huffington got into it over the alleged red shift that had struck the news site, once known as the liberal’s Drudge Report, since its merger with AOL. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 2/14 4:24pm

off the record

Atlantic

The Atlantic Cover Story Traveling Dinner Series Makes Its First Stop in New York

Last night Atlantic Media chairman David Bradley had a couple dozen of New York’s non-fashion elite to dinner at Eleven Madison Park, kicking off a new monthly series that aims to capture the engagement with Atlantic cover stories demonstrated online by Facebook recommendations in a more intimate, in-person format.

Unlike the ill-fated salons proposed by The Washington Post in 2009, lobbyists can’t buy a seat at these off-the-record dinners; The Atlantic picked up the tab. The aim of the series, which may move to Los Angeles, Chicago, Silicon Valley, or Washington, D.C., depending on the cover story’s content, appears more earnest. Read More

By Foster Kamer 2/03 7:19pm

LOL

Ms. Tsotsis, Freedom Fighter (or something like it).

TechCrunch Blogger Continues Trying to Get Fired, Openly Laughing at Arianna Huffington (and her ‘Nap Rooms’)

We’ve previously documented the wonderfully instigation-happy writing style of Alexia Tsotsis, the TechCrunch blogger who clearly knows something about severance packages at AOL that everyone else doesn’t. Because she’s at it again, writing like she wants to get fired, or at least test the limits of TechCrunch’s autonomy and/or Arianna Huffington’s patience. Read More