Is HuffPost racist? By its own standards, it would appear so

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Summary:

• HuffPost has published "news" articles (and innumerable blog articles) that falsely allege the Tea Party is "racist" (1, 2, 3)
  
  
• On two recent occasions, HuffPost published racially inflammatory articles against blacks (1, 2)
  
  
• 75% of America is white; 79% of the Tea Party is white (Gallup)
  
  
• Yet as this article documents, apparently 0% of HuffPost's top executives, reporters and editors are black
  
  
• So who are the real racists here?
  
  
• Also see our special report, HuffPost vs the Tea Party: Which one *really* incites and tolerates hate speech & calls for violence?

As noted in HUFF-WATCH's recent comprehensive, special report, since November 2009 HuffPost has been engaged in what amounts to a "journalistic jihad" against the Tea Party. One of the central allegations of its bogus "news" reporting and opinion articles (blogs) is that the Tea Party is racist --- not because of any evidence, and in spite of evidence to the contrary.

HuffPost's rationale, in part, is that we never/hardly ever see blacks at Tea Party rallies. (As we point out in this article, the media, including HuffPost, have failed/refused to acknowledge the non-whites who attend Tea Party events and otherwise support it.)

Recently, we began to wonder, whether in fact HuffPost itself is racist, given two articles it chose to run in its "news" section:

3/29/10: HuffPost's near-racist smear of
RNC Chairman Michael Steele
HuffPost ran a splash headline implying that RNC chairman Michael Steele was in close proximity to two scantily-clad white women in a bondage situation. Yet for at least 16 hours after it acknowledged that this implication was false, it refused to remove the headline photo --- thus providing the grist for radical leftist hate comments against Steele.






3/20/10: Did HuffPost claim that black people are
"the laziest people ever"?
Judge for yourself; those who know HuffPost know that it would have gone ballistic with charges of "racism!" had any non-leftist publication put forth such a "story":

Then there's these two articles that we ran, documenting the fact that while HuffPost approves and publishes racial slurs submitted by the radical leftists it enables, protects and emboldens, it fast-banned a user who posted carbon copies of these racial slurs, but which are altered to be directed a leftist political figure (of color).

Then, on May 2, we happened to catch this brilliant video from Broliath, at Moonbattery. It shows MSNBC's attack-dog-in-chief, Keith Olbermann, decrying the alleged "racism" of the Tea Party --- while failing to acknowledge the fact that all or the overwhelming majority of NBC's and MSNBC's hosts, experts, analysts and contributors are... white:

To which Van Helsing, Moonbattery's chief bat-swatter, presciently noted:

As we already know: while the Tea Party movement is 79% white, America is already 75% white. I might have to pull out my calculator to figure out the percentage of MSNBC correspondents who are white...not.

(Ed.: The original source for the 79%, Gallup, here)

And that got us wondering: How many of HuffPost's executives, reporters and editors are black?

After all, being a "progressive" (leftist) publication that is willing to smear the Tea Party with false charges of racism, HuffPost would surely make room for black faces within its top ranks, right? Especially given that HuffPost operates in three cities that boast lots of qualified black business-types and reporters --- Los Angeles, Washington, DC and New York!!! So what did we find out?

Not a single one of HuffPost's top executives, reporters or editors is black. And by its own standards --- as judged by the offensive comments it chooses to publish from the radical leftists that it attracts, protects and emboldens --- any organization of HuffPost's size that does not employ a single black person in a top position is not only "racist," its people must be "reThugliKKKans."


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Here's a roundup of HuffPost's top executives. Notice a certain skin pigment in common --- and one that's missing?

Wait. Do you mean to tell us that in all of New York, and in all of Los Angeles, there exists not one qualified or high-aptitude black American that HuffPost could have hired as one of its executives? Really?

Arianna Huffington
Co-Founder and Editor in Chief
arianna@huffingtonpost.com



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Eric Hippeau
Chief Executive Officer
eric@huffingtonpost.com


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Ken Lerer
Chairman




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Greg Coleman
President & Chief Revenue Officer





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Eric Ashman
Chief Financial Officer




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Mario Ruiz
Vice President - Media Relations




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Paul Berry
Chief Technology Officer






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What about HuffPost's "reporters" and "correspondents" --- those who write its original "news" stories --- at least one of them must be black, right? No.

Wait. Do you mean to tell us that in all of New York, and in all of Los Angeles, and in all of Washington, DC, there exists not one qualified or high-aptitude black American that HuffPost could have hired as one of its reporters? Really?

Dan Froomkin
Senior Washington Correspondent





Ryan Grim
Reporter




Jason Linkins
Reporter





Sam Stein
Senior White House Correspondent




Arthur Delaney
Reporter





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Well surely at least some of HuffPost's top editors must be black, right? Nope.

Wait. Do you mean to tell us that in all of New York, and in all of Los Angeles, and in all of Washington, DC, there exists not one qualified or high-aptitude black American that HuffPost could have hired as one of its top editors? Really?

HuffPost's Editors:

Roy Sekoff
Editor



Jai Singh
Managing Editor




Thomas Edsall
Political Editor

Willow Bay
Senior Editor







Nico Pitney
National Editor

HuffPost's Section Editors:

Section Editors (l-r): David Flumenbaum (Managing Blog Editor), Hannah Ingber Win (World Editor), Ryan McCarthy (Associate Business Editor), David Weiner (New York Editor), Katherine Goldstein (Green Editor), Danny Shea (Media Editor), Alex Leo (Comedy Editor), Katy Hall (Associate Entertainment Editor)

The above photo and caption are from the NYU Center for Publishing blog article, "Get to Know The HuffPo," published on October 20, 2009. The article opens with:

"On a cold and wet Thursday, a small group of publishing students packed into the SoHo office of The Huffington Post to learn about one of the most heavily trafficked websites on the internet."

Wait, you mean that in the famously creative and multi-cultural SoHo district, there isn't a single black American that HuffPost could hire as a top editor?


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Here's a PDF of HuffPost's masthead, to show where we got our data.

Just to show that we were not cherry-picking anything (link here):

03May10 Masthead -

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Conclusion: You've got a lot of 'splainin to do, HuffPost.

HuffPost, if you engage in a "journalistic jihad" against a grassroots civic organization that has no formal membership, no dues and no management structure, with 21% minorities, and you decide to falsely accuse it in a global media forum of being "racist," you better have your own house in order regarding racial balance.

Or, as Eric Clapton sang, "Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself":

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UPDATE, May 3: "Happy Holidays from the Huffington Post, 2009"


There are 69 people in this picture, from here. 2 of them (2.8%), highlighted, are black. Let's analyze this further.

As noted above, apparently none of HuffPost's top executives, reporters or editors are black. HuffPost operates primarily in three states: California, New York, and Washington, DC. What is the percentage of blacks who live in those cities --- some of whom must surely be qualified to work as an executive, reporter or editor?

California: 7% black (250% higher than the ratio in HuffPost's picture)

New York (main office): 18% black (642% higher than HuffPost)

Washington, DC: 55% black (1,964% higher than HuffPost)

Some 'splainin to do, indeed, Ms. Huffington.


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UPDATE, May 16: GM design chief accuses Huffington Post of racial prejudice

This update comes to us from an anonymous reader. The writing is a bit unclear, but apparently one of HuffPost's bloggers accused GM of:

"having designs [that] reek of older white guys wearing suits to the office in Detroit, except for one woman and one black guy.”

Oh dear. How does that conform to Arianna Huffington's claim that:

"[At HuffPost] there are guidelines that have to be followed -- and they include a prohibition on... inflammatory claims..."
- Feb. 1, 2010

Well, it's not like this is the first time there's a fundamental clash between what HuffPost says, and what it does:

The top five myths about HuffPost --- versus the reality

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