What Does the AOL/HuffPo Deal Mean for Journalism?

What Does the AOL/HuffPo Deal Mean for Journalism?

What Does the AOL/HuffPo Deal Mean for Journalism?

On Uprising Radio, John Nichols says that the $315 million deal will not benefit readers.

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On Pacifica’s Uprising Radio, The Nation’s John Nichols says that the $315 million deal just reached between AOL and Huffington Post will not actually benefit readers or writers. The Huffington Post business model depends on aggregating content and not paying journalists. "Journalism cannot survive as a useful small d democratic force,” Nichols says, if people who call themselves citizen or professional journalists are not getting up in the morning and going out to investigate stories and “speak truth to power."

Read Nichols’s latest blog post for more on the deal.

Kevin Gosztola

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

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Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

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The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

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Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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