News that the Huffington Post has been sold to AOL for $315 million will give hope to smaller enterprises trying to establish real journalistic businesses online. The Post reportedly earns $65 million a year from advertising to its upmarket readership - a more-than-satisfactory figure when it can distribute itself without the cost of printing presses, transport or retailers.
The Post emerged from blogging culture and hired professional editorial staff to compete with established news organisations' sites. It's not the only example of building an audience for online news and then landing a large cash offer.
One of the most remarkable success stories comes from the opposite coast. Nikki Finke is a Hollywood journalist specialising in film and television industry news. She started Deadline.com (below) in March 2006 as an extension of her showbusiness column for the LA Weekly - a freebie which she has been quoted describing as "the official paper of valet parkers".
She persuaded the paper to give her the blog site to post news faster than was possible in her weekly printed column. In the process, she sidestepped the downmarket reputation of the Weekly and found she could both work for a media organisation and function as an independent journalist. As she told me, she once explained to a friend that she was only at the Weekly because at that time she'd needed a job. Her friend said: "But you're showing you can be working for any little rag and, as long as they have access to the internet, everybody will see your stuff."
The site was a liberation: Finke insisted on retaining ownership and, as its traffic and reputation increased, she received a series of offers from media companies. Just over three years after going online, in June 2009, she got what she calls an "insanely good" offer from MMC (Mail.com Media Corporation), a digital media business with a number of online brands.
Finke sold, for an undisclosed sum. At the time, figures of $10 to $14 million were reported. When I spoke to her recently, she admitted she is still astonished at this turn in her fortunes: "I go to my accounts all the time - my bank statements and my investment accounts - and look at them at least once a day, and sort of go 'Oh my God, I can't believe I have this money'. It's an extraordinary feeling to go from at one point selling my car because I don't know how I'm going to live to suddenly being set for life."
Under the deal, Finke continues to edit Deadline but MMC handles the advertising. She is already building on the success of the brand, producing her own Oscars magazine, and is developing other projects.
For journalists, Finke's set-up appears ideal. The blogging software which powers her site makes posting as easy as sending an email. She can work from anywhere, which can be both a blessing and a curse. The studio executives who call with stories don't know where she is: "I work all the time, so I'm there with the equivalent of a netbook in an aisle at Home Depot, and they think I'm sitting in my office. A friend gave me his house in Hawaii for several weeks and I was working from there, and nobody had a clue."
Finke admits she is a workaholic: "Even when I'm on vacation, I post." The 24/7 nature of a blog fits happily with her attitude to work: "I've made a commitment. I do not have a family. I've been married ... hated it. I have never wanted children. I have always been completely career-oriented."
Since the acquisition, Finke has hired a couple of senior reporters to work with her. Under the deal with MMC, she retains complete editorial and design control: "They can't touch that stuff without me. Nobody can tell me what to write, or what not to write."
Finke's achievement in building a brand on the strength of her voice and her journalism shows what can be done by an individual. The question for Finke and, on a bigger scale for the Huffington Post, is whether the distinctive voice and style that built an audience can be retained under the ownership of a big media organisation. For the new corporate owners, that unique culture was key to the money they offered: can it scale as part of a bigger enterprise?
This is the first of a series of posts on blogging for journalists. There will be a chapter on the subject by Charles Miller in a forthcoming book, Face the Future: Tools for the Modern Media Age, edited by John Mair and Richard Keeble; published by Arima in March.
Below: Nikki Finke on the Huffington Post acquisition.
