Under the Radar at CPAC - Huffington Post/AOL Deal

The Conservative Political Action Conference just ended, wrapping up a weekend of big successes, surprises and fun. But the problem with so many great speakers, panels and parties is much of what happens flies under the radar in the media, not based upon the attention they deserve, but for the simple fact of quantity. One such story that was on people’s minds was the marriage, some say made in Hell, of left-wing blogging site The Huffington Post and AOL.

Aside from biased reporters at mainstream newspapers and fringe outlets like MSNBC, Huffington

Post is correctly viewed as framing their stories to benefit liberals, or as they prefer to be

called, “progressives.” Whatever you call them, they have little interest in fairness or balance, or many stories that shine an unfavorable light on anyone with a “D” after their name.

More than that, it’s difficult to find nastier, more vitriolic comments anywhere on the Internet than

in the comment section of the Huffington Post. Whenever a conservative passes away, check the

comments on HuffPo. When any story breaks, check out the extreme, unadulterated hatred, death

wishes, attacks on the children of politicians, anything you can imagine spewed so casually and cheered by others found in the comment section of the Huffington Post.

When HuffPo was sold to AOL for a staggering $315 million, the fact that found Arianna Huffington would be Editor in Chief of all news content on all AOL news sites. Huffington, a former conservative who somehow managed to change every position she publicly professed overnight (how that could happen and the financial reward in doing so is a story for another time), is an avowed “progressive” with an activist agenda. How could a woman with an agenda disinterested in fairness and a history of allowing such vitriol to appear on her site be considered to do anything but bring that bias and anger with her to this new job? Quite simply, she can’t – and won’t.

It’s one thing to have a bias or opinion, it’s quite another to have an outlet like AOL legitimize that

agenda and supply a larger, more credible platform from which to spew it.

This didn’t go unnoticed at CPAC. A group of about 10-15 mostly college students fanned out across

the massive hotel conference area to hand out flyers highlighting just a few of the many hate-filled

comments and posts found on Huffington Post. Things like Republicans are terrorist, Nazis and worse that can be routinely found on the site, so why would anyone with Republican/conservative sensibilities give the new Huffington Post/AOL empire what they desire more than anything – web traffic? Every click earns money for people who think the worst things possible about anyone who dare to think differently and support the ideals found in the Constitution, so why do it?

These young protesters, avid websurfers all, were calling for a boycott. If AOL sees value in devaluing half of the country’s strongly held beliefs, they see no reason to help build up AOL’s shrinking market-share and, more importantly, wallet.

Conservatives are generally known for boycotts, they’re more of a “progressive” tactic, but with all the alternatives out there for news on the Web, why go to any of the sites owned by a company that would pay $315 million for a site that explicitly attacks you? Especially when they put someone with Arianna Huffington’s history of vitriol in charge of them all?

Thankfully the Internet offers countless alternatives, for every MapQuest there’s a Google Maps, for

every MoviePhone there’s a Flixter, and for every PoliticsDaily there’s a RealClearPolitics. The protesters’ point was well taken – there’s no need to patronize and fund people who seek to impose their will on others, an agenda with which you disagree, when there are other, many times better, alternatives out there. Something to consider next time you see a link to a story on Facebook that links to this media giant. The information is out there elsewhere, all you have to do is look.