Huffington Debates Free Content In Monaco, Washington

Monaco — Arianna Huffington says she enjoys the kind of headline-making debate she engaged in Thursday with Europe’s largest newspaper publisher, Mathias Dopfner, over free versus paid online news models.

So, Huffington is taking her case to Washington DC next month, where she will square off with another traditional newspaper nemesis, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.

“Journalism doesn’t need saving; it needs strengthening,” the founding CEO of The Huffington Post told me in an interview.

“Debating is my favorite thing since my Cambridge days. We are both passionate about our positions and Mathias is a worthy adversary,” Huffington said after she traded barbs in an onstage discussion Nov. 12 at the invitation-only Monaco Media Forum.

She is used to defending her advertising-supported online newspaper produced with a full-time paid staff of about 80 and hundreds of unpaid contributors who blog about their expertise and interests.

Dopfner, who is chief executive of Axel Springer, said he agrees with News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch that such web news aggregators are “stealing” and said that only “web communists” believe that consumers will not pay for specialized sports, financial and local reporting.  “You are incredibly convincing and you will be proved incredibly wrong,” Huffington told Dopfner, whose newspapers include Germany’s Bild Zeitung.

Although Axel Springer recently reported quarterly profits, many traditional newspaper publishers have plummeting revenues and operating income. Murdoch recently vowed to begin selectively charging online readers for some stories and to remove all stories from being indexed on Google. Huffington told me she has no plans to begin charging her readers even for future mobile access of her web site.

“From day one I have seen it as a hybrid model that reflects the best of online, traditional print and new technology. This is not an either-or proposition,” Huffington told me. Over the next 18 months, The Huffington Post, which is modestly profitable, will begin to incorporate new forms of advertising, video, social networking and local reporting to improve its reach and revenues, she said.

The heated debate will continue Dec. 1when Huffington, Murdoch and others speak at the Federal Trade Commission conference.

“Going to the government to request special exemptions and bail- outs is not the answer. Everything is being reinvented with real-time data and conversations,” Huffington said.

Her remarks reflect what Huffington told senators last spring in testimony on the future of journalism before the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. “Digital news is a classic case of ‘disruptive innovation’-a development that newspapers ignored for far too long,” Huffington said in prepared remarks. “Even so, I think the obituaries for newspapers we’re hearing are premature.”