The Huffington Post has opted for an Independent-style Facebook app, which sits within the Huffington Post UK site rather than encouraging readers to access stories within Facebook, as favoured by the Guardian.
Those who sign up for the app and agree to share some of their Facebook details will see their reading habits shared with their Facebook friends.
Carla Buzasi, editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post UK told Journalism.co.uk that there is an option to opt out.
Every time you are on a story and you don’t want that to be shared there’s a delay and you can click and stop it sharing.
The Huffington Post, which launched a UK edition on 6 July, hopes that the app will increase traffic to the UK site, which reported 5.4 million unique views in January.
Buzasi said:
We’re obviously monitoring it quite carefully. It’s a little bit to early to say at the moment but Facebook does send us a significant amount of traffic already.
Christian Science Monitor reports on a worrying mistake:
Earlier today, as news of the alleged identity of the would-be Times Square bomber rocketed around the web, a reporter at the Huffington Post published a screen shot from the Facebook page of a man named Faisal Shahzad. It made sense: Shahzad, a Shelton, Conn., resident, had been identified by law enforcement after he was hauled off an airplane preparing to depart Kennedy Airport. But the Huffington Post got the wrong Faisal Shahzad – a fact noted by several bloggers, including Glen Runciter of Gawker.
HuffPost College features voices from colleges and universities all around the country and offers a real-time snapshot of what’s going on in the lives of the nation’s 19 million college students – from coverage of the latest trends and sports happenings to more serious issues such as freedom of expression on campus and the rising cost of tuition.
HuffPo has also brought recent graduates in to help edit and run the microsite – a good opportunity for US student journalists to showcase their work and a ready-made specialist audience for the site to engage with.
The Huffington Post has signed up with Facebook Connect to offer its users the ability to comment on news stories from the site and share them on Facebook via new profile pages on the HuffPo site.
The ‘social news’ service will also allow users to find out which of their Facebook friends are also reading HuffPo.
The launch is part of a bigger move towards personalised news, says founder Ariana Huffington, and more personalisation and social features are in the pipeline.
“The explosive growth of online social networking has fundamentally changed our relationship with news. It’s no longer something we passively take in. We now engage with news, react to news, and share news. News has become an important element of community – something around which we gather, connect, and converse,” writes Huffingotn.
America has lost a top celebrity anchorman, whose news delivery was so influential, he came to be called ‘the most trusted man in America’.
He died peacefully at his home, on Friday July 17, at the age of 92.
Walter Cronkite was an anchorman for CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981, reading news including a wide range of historical events: the moon landings, Watergate, John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the Vietnam war.
He had a reassuring manner of delivering the news that inspired confidence and trust in the audience. Every evening 70 million Americans heard him deliver his broadcast, which invariably concluded with the parting words “And that’s the way it is.”
He was born Walter Leland Cronkite Jr on November 4th, 1916 in St. Joseph, Missouri, the son of a dentist. As a teenager, his family moved to Houston, where he had his first junior reporter job at The Houston Post – and at the same time delivering the very paper for which he worked.
Known for his trademark clipped moustache and grave voice, he was affectionately known as Uncle Walt, owing to a resemblance to Walt Disney. Despite his popularity, Cronkite was uncomfortable with his celebrity status and declined a proposal for a Walter Cronkite fan club saying: “I don’t think news people ought to have fan clubs.” He also brushed aside suggestions for him to stand for vice-president, even president. The only job he had ever wanted was that of reporter.
No amount of friendship or adulation could compromise Cronkite’s journalistic integrity. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said, “When I wanted to make a point Cronkite was the first person I would call. I was sure I was getting a fair interview – tough but fair.”
Some of Cronkite’s finest moments:
1963: Assassination of President John F . Kennedy: Walter Cronkite famously displays a rare show of emotion, taking off his glasses to fight back tears as he announces the death of President Kennedy. Video below:
1968: Vietnam War: After visiting Vietnam in 1968, he called the war ‘a stalemate’ and made his pro-peace stance clear. His views were so influential that, having watched the broadcast, the then US President Lyndon Johnson reportedly said, “I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Two weeks later Johnson resigned and announced he would not stand for re-election. Walter Cronkite on the Vietnam War.
1969: Apolo 11’s landing on the moon: His coverage of the landing made CBS’ footage of the first moonwalk a favourite in America. Walter Cronkite and the landing on the moon.
1977: Cronkite’s interview with Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin led to Sadat visiting Jerusalem and signing the peace accords the following year at Camp David.
Cronkite retired from from the CBS evening news programme in 1981, handing it over to Dan Rather, but continued producing special reports for the CBS network and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour. In 1983 he covered the general elections in the UK for ITV and interviewed Margaret Thatcher.
He is survived by a son, two daughters and four grandsons.
You what? The HuffPo doesn’t like links? Well, one in particular: a link to the HuffingtonPost’s site from a spoof site, made by the Washington City Paper for April Fool’s.
“This past Tuesday, City Paper columnist Amanda Hess blasted HuffPo for its nipple- (or is that traffic-) driven priorities, after which City Paper received a request from HuffPo asking it to take down the parody page from its archive. One of its reasons: ‘The official was perturbed,’ writes Wemple, ‘that the parody page that virtually no one has clicked on since April Fool’s contains a link to the Huffington Post site.’ No switching necessary (though perhaps a little bit of baiting) in that headline after all.”
America has lost a top celebrity anchorman, whose news delivery was so influential, he came to be called ‘the most trusted man in America’.