HuffPost to AOL: Leaving left behind?

The Huffington Post may have been founded as the liberal answer to the conservative Drudge Report, a place for progressive wound-licking in the wake of George W. Bush’s re-election. But on Feb 7, Arianna Huffington was distancing herself from the lefty label as she announced the sale of HuffPost to AOL for $315 million.

“We don't see ourselves as left,” she said. “And I think it’s one area where news consumers are ahead of the media, because they know that continuing to see everything that’s happening as a right-left issue is missing what’s happening, and is also making it much harder for us to be properly informed.” Some on the left worry that the sale to AOL could mean an end to HuffPost in its current incarnation -- away from its roots in the progressive community, which were its first bloggers, commenters and readers, and toward a more middle-of-the-road posture, to make it more broadly appealing. But Huffington insists that’s no change at all, and that the transition away from progressive politics has been underway for some time. In a conference call Monday morning, she pointed out that politics, once central to its brand, now makes up only 15 percent of traffic on the site, which has recently added sections dedicated to topics like college life and divorce.