Posted by chicagomedia.org on August 13, 2008 at 15:12:54:
As Arianna Huffington talked on the phone about hopes and dreams for one child, she was interrupted in midsentence by another.
The Huffington Post Chicago, her national Web site's first local franchise, is set to make its debut this week. But it was Huffington's 17-year-old daughter who bounded into her home office with news she had just passed her driver's test for a full license and wanted to take the Prius out for the first time by herself to lunch with a friend in Santa Monica, Calif.
"Text me as soon as you arrive," Huffington said. "If you have any doubt about where you are going, stop and call me."
One rite of passage out of the way, she returned to talking about the birth of the The Huffington Post's first offspring. By midday Thursday, The Huffington Post Chicago—a local amalgam of news, commentary, features and personal reflections that's part media outlet, part salon in the fashion of The Huffington Post—should be linked and loaded, ready for viewing off thehuffingtonpost.com.
"I just got a great blog post from John Cusack," Huffington said. "People who are from Chicago have all these amazing warm feeling and memories of Chicago. ... It is tribal. John is in Bangkok making a movie, and he was kind of emotional with this ode to Chicago."
Chicago-raised actress Jami Gertz is working on a submission, as is Fred Armisen of "Saturday Night Live." On tap are such familiar bylines as Jonathan Alter, Lynn Sweet, Cornelia Grumman, Lee Bey and Esther Cepeda. Others, such as environmentalist Howard Lerner and chef Gale Gand, bring a particular expertise to the party.
"I don't know that any other city would get that kind of response and resonance," Huffington said.
It's not clear whether this local Post fills a void or creates its own real estate in the media landscape, which is in retreat and recession on several fronts of late. So much is changing so fast, it's not even clear to some whether existing papers, broadcast outlets and Web sites are its rivals or allies.
But if it can make it here, the assumption is it make it anywhere.
Huffington and Willow Bay, the wife of Walt Disney Co. boss Bob Iger and a former "Good Morning America" weekend co-host who is the Huffington Post editor-at-large overseeing the local rollouts, expect there could be 10 to 20 more sites in a couple years.
"This [Chicago site] is a work in progress," Bay said from her own home office, down the block from Huffington. "I'm always surprised, which is part of the fun of what we do, but there will be a ton of news and politics writers. There will be food, because it's one of the great food cities in the country, and certainly sports. We have a bunch of environmental writers because Chicago [wants] to be a leader in growing its green economy."
Ben Goldberger, 25, a former Chicago Sun-Times staffer, will be the only paid employee here. Ad sales will be handled from HuffPo's office in New York. Writers work pro bono. So the chief risk for Huffington is less financial than to the HuffPo brand she has nurtured.
Like her household's newly minted driver, a crash is less likely than the new baby losing its way.
(Rosenthal)