HuffPost, Breaking From Its Roots, Ends Unpaid Contributions
But Ms. Polgreen said in an interview that unfiltered platforms had devolved into “cacophonous, messy,
hard-to-hear places where voices get drowned out and where the loudest shouting voice prevails.”
“Certainly the environment where fake news is flourishing is one where it gets harder
and harder to support the idea of a ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ kind of publishing platform,” Ms. Polgreen said.
Though she is closing one of the site’s most populist components, she has also articulated an inclusive vision for the site inspired by big-city tabloids
and local television news and aimed at an ideologically agnostic population of Americans who are “never going to pay for news.”
Her first year has not been without its challenges
In 2008, Mayhill Fowler, a woman who said she had sold her car to fund travel on the campaign trail, set off a firestorm when she quoted Barack Obama at a fund-raiser saying
that working-class voters “cling to guns or religion.”
But the site’s days of encouraging everyday citizens to report on the news are over.
The elimination of the platform, which drove 10 to 15 percent of the site’s traffic, is only the latest
change for the site since Ms. Polgreen, 42, took the helm after Ms. Huffington stepped down.
The decision was rooted as much in a move to declutter the site as in Ms. Polgreen’s desire to focus on quality reporting
and minimize unvetted stories at a time when there is so much misinformation online.