- NEW YORK: Arianna Huffington took her feud with The New York Times to a new level on April Fool’s Day, jesting that employees of the paper will have to start paying to read her website, The Huffington Post.
To mark the start this week of a plan by the “Gray Lady” to begin charging online readers, Huffington said Times employees — and only Times employees — will have to pay to read The Huffington Post.
In a jab at the Times digital subscription plan, which allows readers to see 20 articles a month for free, Huffington said Times employees will be allowed to see the first six letters of each word for free before being asked to pay.
“You may choose to subscribe to see the rest of each word individually, or choose a package to access all words of more than six letters,” Huffington said in her April Fool’s Day blog post.
Huffington and Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, have taken public potshots at each other recently with Keller opening fire first by calling Huffington the “queen of aggregation,” in a dig at her site’s frequent linking to news items produced by other media outlets.
Keller also dismissed much of The Huffington Post’s popularity to its use of “celebrity gossip” and “adorable kitten videos.” Huffington, in her blog post, said “slideshows and videos of adorable kittens (our signature offering) will be available for free only to one very senior New York Times employee.”
