Vargas covered "the marriage" of the Internet and politics at the Washington Post, but that doesn't mean he's a above some straying. He's going to oversee the Huffington Post's new tech section in the fall, reports the New York Times' Brian Stelter.

We can only imagine Arianna was breathy as she described for Stelter her "regular" emails with Vargas since the election. They apparently involved harnessing people for deep engagement, and were quite memorable:

I love his passion for communicating how technology impacts our lives, and exploring the many ways the Internet can be harnessed to reach new readers and engage existing ones more deeply - something we've been working on at HuffPost since the beginning.

Two weeks ago, Huffington hired newly-discharged Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin; a month and a half before that HuffPo poached WaPo investigations editor Lawrence Roberts. HuffPo's editors also include longtime WaPo reporter Thomas Edsall and Nicholas Graham, of the family that owns the DC newspaper.

The big impact of the Vargas hire, of course, is that it means yet another awkward goodbye party appearance for WaPo columnist Dana Millbank, who thinks HuffPo's DC bureau is basically a bag of craven dicks. Or rather was a bag of craven dicks. Use that at the party, Dana. Was.

(Pic via Philippines Embassy)

At least Froomkin will be around other ex-Posties. He joins former WaPo investigations editor Lawrence Roberts, who joined HuffPo's new investigative fund in May, and Thomas Edsall, the longtime WaPo reporter who joined as titular political editor two years ago. Then there's Nicholas Graham, a Huffington Post associate editor and member of the family that owns the Washington Post.

Froomkin, who many supporters believe was ousted over the aggressive tenor of his reporting, will head HuffPo's Washington bureau, overseeing four reporters and an assistant editor. He'll thus learn first hand how deeply involved Arianna Huffington is the publication of her website, from arranging the front page to spiking articles for running afoul of her preferred political paradigm. Get ready for some fun, long phone calls, Dan. Try not to break any desks or strain your vocal chords.

(Pic by yksin)

Internet mogul Huffington might be difficult to work for, but she's a social charmer. Her performance at the Wall Street Journal's D tech conference was a good illustration of her endearingly saucy approach; asked whether Huffington Post would ever charge a subscription fee, as many newspapers are now contemplating, she said that only works for porn — and, increasingly, only for the fetish stuff.

WaPo publisher Katherine Weymouth clearly admired Huffington, not only for her charisma but also for the Huffington Post's success online. Given a chance to take a swipe at HuffPo, which is entering local markets like hers with $25 million in venture funding, Weymouth instead praised the "amazing" site and thanked Huffington for sending her traffic.

The two "Posts" are linked by more than just traffic: The Nicholas Graham who works as an associate news editor at HuffPo is related to former WaPo publisher Katherine Graham, we're told, making him part of the same family news dynasty as Weymouth.

Not that Weymouth needs a family connection to praise Huffington. Any media scion charged with growing the family newspaper business in the 21st Century would be foolish not to try and pick up some lessons from a publication that's spun huge traffic from free writers.

[video via Business Insider]

Washington Post dork Chris Cillizza admitted it.

CNET Newser Caroline McCarthy did not have to see a man about a horse.

Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback attempted to rent a car from a shoe store.

New Yorker Twitter controversialist Susan Orlean complained about an inanimate object, for a change.

Wired research editor Joanna Pearlstein rapped her job applicants' knuckles with a Twitter-shaped ruler.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

The morosely moribund newspaper industry is looking for a bailout. The government and Google are the only people with cash on hand these days; even superstar investor Warren Buffett, who owns stakes in the Post and the Buffalo News, says he won't put more money into the business.

A government handout to watchdog institutions is unseemly, so the papers are understandably targeting Google. Howard Kurtz reports in the Post that his employer is talking to Google about "improved ways of creating and presenting news online." Timesblogger Brian Stelter has Twittered that his bosses are doing the same.

Oh, so the newspapers want preening, self-important executives like Google VP Marissa Mayer to boss around their Web designers the way they do underlings at the Googleplex? Unlikely. They want cash, and soon.

It's sad that their writers are resorting to tactics they accuse bloggers of, like inventing facts out of whole cloth to serve their arguments. Take Times columnist Frank Rich, who insulted every non-newspaper journalist on the planet with this fabrication:

Just because information wants to be free on the Internet doesn't mean it can always be free. Web advertising will never be profitable enough to support ambitious news gathering. If a public that thinks nothing of spending money on texting or pornography doesn't foot the bill for such reportage, it won't happen.

Tell that to to CNET News, the tech news site which has won awards for its reporting. Or the citizen journalists of the Huffington Post, whose scoops shaped the last election. Or the experienced ink-stained wretches of Politico, some of whom worked not long ago at the Times and the Post. For that matter, the implication that journalism only happens when readers pay is nonsense. Look no further than the decades-old traditions of deep, original reporting found on radio and TV institutions like NPR and 60 Minutes, whose broadcasts come absolutely free of charge.

Kurtz, too, indulges in the occasional unreported fiction posing as fact:

Hanging over the talks is the reality that the search giant, while funneling vital traffic to news sites, vacuums up their content without paying a dime.

This "reality" is more of a collective delusion shared only by the newsrooms of America.

Then there are straight-out guilt trips: If Google doesn't pay for journalism, who will?

None of these tactics — begging, propaganda, guilt — seem to be working. That's because Googlers are smart, and they see that the newspapers have absolutely no leverage. We have a simple proposal for the executives of the Post and Times: Sue Google.

If they believe in their arguments, that Google is doing something improper with their content outside the bounds of fair use, then they should make their case in a court of law. Yes, they'll get brickbats from the blogosphere, but they're already losing in the court of opinion. And until there's a threat hanging over Google's head, there's absolutely no reason for them to open up their pocketbook.

It's a risky course. Google might respond with an alternative proposal: Instead of paying for the newspapers' headlines, why doesn't it charge them for the traffic it sends to their websites? There's ample precedent.

Larry Kramer, the newspaper executive who founded MarketWatch and now works as a venture capitalist, once told me a story about his company's dealings with Yahoo Finance. The stocks website was sending MarketWatch tons of free Web traffic through links on its site. MarketWatch executives were thrilled. But as it readied itself to go public, MarketWatch's investment bankers got nervous. What if Yahoo pulled the plug on the links? MarketWatch ended up signing a contract to pay Yahoo, in exchange for a guarantee.

Google has long resisted such pay-for-play links in its search results, segregating out commercial links as clearly marked ads. But the newspapers' whiny intransigence might test its morals. We'd like to see both sides put their money where their mouth is, and act to back up their stances — the newspapers, that content is worth paying for, and Google, that links have value. Better than this namby-pamby talk of talks.

Juno scribe Diablo Cody talked about dicks.

Washington Post tech reporter Rob Pegoraro discussed his email habits.

Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl discomfited everyone who hadn't realized she was dressed up as Gene Simmons.

Chicago Sun-Times D.C. bureau chief Lynn Sweet fed our Michelle Obama obsession.

Today Show videoblog correspondent Sara Haines looked forward to puppies.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets — or send us more Twitter usernames.

Facebook's flacks are portraying the appointment as a sign of the maturation of the unruly social network launched in a college dorm. But Zuckerberg and Graham first met in 2005, introduced by a Harvard classmate of Zuckerberg's who worked at the Washington Post, according to Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, Sarah Lacy's swiftly fossilizing history of Web 2.0. (The tale does not seem to be well known; Washingtonian reported on the existence of Graham's Facebook page with smirking surprise last year.)

Graham had reached an agreement in principle with Zuckerberg to invest millions of dollars in Facebook, valuing the startup at $40 million. But Accel Partners, a well-known Silicon Valley venture-capital firm swooped in and offered to invest $15 million for 15 percent of the company, a much better deal.

Zuckerberg felt honor-bound to ask Graham for permission to take Accel's money, Lacy reported. "I release you from your moral dilemma," Graham told him. It was a costly decision for the Post, which might now have a stake theoretically valued in the billions of dollars, going by the price Microsoft paid for its $240 million stake in Facebook. Now, Graham will be serving on Facebook's board alongside Accel partner Jim Breyer, whose firm reaped the benefit instead. No hard feelings: The two are Facebook friends.

(Photo by Esthr)

In 1983, Knight Ridder and AT&T joined to launch videotext service Viewtron. Anybody with a dedicated terminal, phone line, and $12 a month could access news from the Miami Herald and the New York Times, online shopping, banking and food delivery, via a 300-baud modem. Norman Morrison, one of the subsidiary's VPs, said: "We're at the beginning of home information technology. We are dancing naked on the stage of history." Knight Ridder recorded a loss of $16 million on the project in 1984. Viewtron claimed as many as 3,100 subscribers before Knight Ridder folded the service in 1986. An impressive number considering all that equipment cost between $600 and $900. Bet it would've been more popular if it'd had porn.

In 1995, Knight-Ridder, Tribune, Times Mirror, Advance Publications, Cox Enterprises, Gannett, Hearst, Washington Post, and the New York Times each contributed $1 million to create New Century Networks in 1995. None of them actually wanted any part of it. The opening paragraphs of BusinessWeek's 1998 article on the fiasco best captures the mood.

It was created with a name most of its owners disliked, with a logo one partner ''hated,'' in a city everybody rejected, with a mission nobody understood. So it was fitting that when New Century Network was kicked off last April by nine media giants teaming up to conquer electronic competition, even the launch party bombed. In a ballroom at the Newspaper Association of America convention in Chicago, a thousand bottles of champagne emblazoned with ''New Century Network: The Collective Intelligence of America's Newspapers'' awaited the hordes expected to come to toast the watershed new-media joint venture. When fewer than 100 people showed up, Chief Executive Lee de Boer made an abbreviated speech before retreating.

The papers sunk $25 million more into New Century Networks before it folded in 1998, laying off 40. Perhaps it was for the best, says a disgruntled vet: "Even had New Century worked, it still would have been something like Google News and that's not exactly the best business ever." Which is funny because Google claims Google News indirectly generates $100 million a year for the company and doesn't crow about it much. These guys? It would've been more naked dancing on stages and things.

After participating in New Century Networks, the now defunct newspaper publisher Knight-Ridder launched Real Cities in September 1999, intending it to be a network of local portals featuring "news, email, search services, e-commerce, and site-building tools," according to PC World. In an article titled "Knight Ridder and New Media: If You Can't Beat 'Em...," Richard Siklos, then at BusinessWeek, wrote

Analysts applaud Knight Ridder's strategy, but some wonder if its network of local sites will ever gel, and they figure Real Cities will someday have to be merged into a bigger entity.

Knight Ridder ignored the pessimists and committed to investing $25 million in its new online business. "I live in terror that some big thing's going to happen that I don't see coming," Knight Ridder New Media President Bob Ingle told BusinessWeek. What Ingle didn't envision: nothing happening. Users didn't flock to Knight Ridder's localized portals. They start their Internets on AOL or Yahoo in Des Moines and by clicking into the Google search box everywhere else. Knight Ridder was eventually sold to McClatchy for $4.5 billion in 2006. Last week, McClatchy sold Real Cities to Centro, a local-media buying agency, for an undisclosed — read: embarrassingly low — amount. Maybe just enough to cover this year's wages?

Before there was Yahoo Answers, where users post questions for other users, there was a similar service from the New York Times called Abuzz, which the Gray Lady acquired in 1999 for a modest-by-bubble-standards $30 million. In January 2001, the Times shuttered the service and laid off 70 staffers, citing an "unexpected slackening of advertising revenue." That was the service's only failure, says a person familiar with the project:

They shut it down after the bubble burst, even though they could have kept growing it, for just the cost of the servers. The Times was always nervous about quality. It was user-generated content, not high-quality editorial and this was before they got down in the dirt with About.com. If they had just left it alone, it would have been ENORMOUS by now

Even when you can't sell adds on ENORMOUS, it's still good. Google News doesn't serve ads. Maybe Abuzz could have referred traffic to NYTimes.com like Google News does to Google. Google calls that trick $100 million. You know what the newspaper's call revenue gimmicks like that? They can't remember.

Founded in 1997 and still operating today, Classified Ventures operates Cars.com, Homescape, Apartments.com, RentalHomesPlus, and HomeGain. It's owned by McClatchy, Belo, Gannett, Tribune and the Washington Post, and is probably the newspaper industry's most successful online venture. That's not saying much. On December 30, 2007, part-owner McClatchy told the SEC its 25.6 percent stake in Classified Ventures was worth $99.3 million. In a filing last week, McClatchy said its stake was now worth $86.5 million — a 13 percent drop in half a year. Craigslist, eBay's Kijiji, and even Facebook allow their users to list cars, apartments, and other goods for sale for free, threatening the paid-classifieds business online and in print.

Oh, and Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium? Don't get us started. Or do.

(Photo by DRB62)

We've been known creative tagging for comedic purposes ourselves, but in this case, doth Wired protest too much? Perhaps so. Asked if "ButtMunch" was Wired's internal nickname fro Arrington's site, business editor Dylan Tweney said, "I don't think it has come into general usage around the Wired.com office. We can always hope, though."

We've got nothing against TechCrunch, but it seems crazy-crazy to us that the Washington Post, a paper known for the sort of reporting that can take down U.S. presidents, is publishing content written by a dude who invests in the companies he writes about.

Slate's ever-griping press critic, Jack Shafer, has already made the point that the Pulitzer judging process is arbitrary. "There's no real science or even fairness behind the picking of winners and losers, with the prizes handed out according to a formula composed of one part log-rolling, two parts merit, three parts 'we owe him one,' and four parts random distribution."

And the former journalist who created HBO's Baltimore drama, The Wire, made one of the last season's villains an editor who boasted of his understanding of Pulitzer judges, because he had once been one. The Wire's semi-fictional Baltimore Sun pretended that its reporting had influenced Maryland's policies with regard to the homeless, because that would prove the impact of its reporting.

But the newspapers' Pulitzer-chasing is most damaging because it distracts newspapers from their real challenge. Rather than impress colleagues with the seriousness of their reporting, US newspapers need to engage a readership that is drifting off to television and the internet. Pulitzer-winning journalism will win Pulitzers; it won't save an industry which is experiencing double-digit annual declines in advertising revenue.

Take a look across the Atlantic. The British Press Awards are so lacking in respectability that, after a particularly rowdy show in 2005, several newspaper editors decided to boycott the awards. A shocked New York Times reporter wrote: "last night's ceremony — a mind-numbing parade of awards in 28 categories — was not a mutually respectful celebration of the British newspaper industry fuelled by camaraderie and bonhomie. It was more like a soccer match attended by a club of misanthropic inebriates."

And yet the British newspaper industry is in much more robust health. To be sure, circulations are in gradual decline. And standards of journalism are as sloppy as ever. But newspapers such as The Guardian have a much greater share of the online audience than their American counterparts. And the papers, while lacking much of the worthy reporting that wins Pulitzers, are way livelier.

The connection? The respect of peers is a luxury that US newspapers have enjoyed because, for much of the second half of the 20th century, they were local monopolies. They could afford to be respectable, because they didn't need to pander to readers. In the UK, by contrast, 12 national dailies are in vicious competition. Editors fear the loss of their jobs, not their honor.

It is not as if the New York Times and Washington Post can magically invigorate themselves by eschewing the Pulitzers. America's vastness, which mitigates against national newspapers and produces smaller local markets which can only support one title, is an unalterable fact. But, while the Washington Post and other winners may celebrate today, they should recognize a harsh truth: the same monopolies which have allowed a public-service mentality to flourish have also left newspapers unprepared for new competition. These Pulitzers are the totem poles of the newspaper industry; beloved relics of former glory.

• And right on cue: Seattle Times announces it is cutting about 200 jobs.

The portal is making a strong play in sports with original content. Yahoo already dominates the world of fantasy sports; adding real reporting to the mix, though, could boost Yahoo's pull with advertisers. The site has 20 sports writers, up from four two years ago. In fact, Yahoo is the most popular sports site on the net according to Nielsen/NetRatings, with 22 million visitors last month compared to ESPN.com's 20 million.

How does old media feel about this? A sports editor at the Washington Post says "we're used to being a destination, not a steppingstone." Get used to that feeling of being stepped on.

Unless, that is, you work for the national desk of a major newspaper. Remember Yahoo's disastrous experience with original news reporting: Kevin Sites's Afghanistan war-reporting diary hasn't been updated in a year. And people still giggle about former Yahoo media exec Lloyd Braun's proposal for an online news show with puppets. Sports is a good business bet, with talent getting rewarded competitively. Hard news? As the TV broadcasters figured out long ago, that's a sure money-loser.

Digg recently inked a $100 million, multiyear ad deal with Microsoft. On those revenues alone, Digg's acquirers could easily justify a $300 million to $400 million purchase price; if Microsoft is paying about $30 million a year for Digg's banner-ad inventory, paying that price would mean a modest 10x to 13x multiple on revenues.

So who is it? A source rules out all the big Internet players — not Microsoft, not Google, not Yahoo. CBS, a big Web acquirer of late, has taken itself out of the running. So who could it be?

Two possibilities: The New York Times Co. and the Washington Post Co. Both the Times' Arthur Sulzberger and the Post's Donald Graham are big believers in a digital future. And both can see firsthand how much traffic Digg contributes to their websites. If I were to place a bet on those two? I'd say the Post, which already owns Slate and has close dealings with Microsoft; Digg's Microsoft ad deal would not discomfit Graham the way it might other businessmen. The Post also has a stronger balance sheet, with a market cap four times the Times'.

That's pure speculation, of course. Acquisition talks fall apart all the time — and for Digg, especially, with its history of almost-but-not-quite deals, I wouldn't be surprised if nothing came of this latest rumor. Still, it's telling that the Valley's talk about Digg has changed from scoffing at its overinflated valuation to talking about who's willing to meet Digg's terms.

Digg CEO Jay Adelson gave me the standard noncomment about "rumors and speculation." But given his transcontinental commute from New York to San Francisco, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd be glad to put his company up for sale. For founder Kevin Rose, a sale would be more emotional. He'd have to be comfortable with whoever buys the company, since he'd likely stay involved. His Diggnation podcast, which draws on headlines from Digg, is one of the centerpieces of his other startup, Revision3. Digg's contentious audience, too, might not take to the site's new owners. That's the biggest obstacle, I suspect, to any deal happening. Those who would profit from the wisdom of crowds must contend with their madness, too.

(Photo by briancaldwell)

• Yahoo News and Huffington Post have had a syndication deal since launch; buying HuffPo, as it's affectionately known, would boost Yahoo's blogger cred.
• AOL may be looking to augment its Weblogs Inc. stable with some good political commentary. HuffPo cofounder Ken Lerer was a bigwig at AOL back in the day — though that may not help him much with Time Warner's current leadership
• HuffPo's pseudo-namesake, the Washington Post, already has a syndication deal with them and a number of WaPo columnists blog for Huffington. The New York Times — heck, aren't they just a fancy blog already?

Really, any media company would be interested in the company that Lerer and Huffington have built — as a cheap add-on, mind you, not at a frothy IPO price. But why sell?

Even if HuffPo had any shot at an IPO — and, as Schonfeld's readers have hastened to tell him on TechCrunch's comments, it doesn't — it's not like its founders need the money. Huffington is a successful writer and got a fat divorce settlement. Lerer was a top executive at AOL and Time Warner and started his own PR firm in New York. This is their pet project and I can't see them selling anytime soon. Huffington — like Michael Moore — has world-changing aspirations. With plenty of money in her pocketbook, she doesn't have to worry about cashing out.

(Disclosure: I consulted for Huffington Post briefly in 2005.) (Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images)

Evan Hansen, a sophomore at Falls Church High School, said he didn't buy into the MySpace hype and is waiting for the craze to die.

"Over time, people are going to get sick of talking to people on the computer," he said. "I just think people will want to spend more time with each other — without the wall of technology."

You heard it here first: The Internet is just a fad.

In Teens' Web World, MySpace Is So Last Year [Washington Post]

Oh my god, right? Like the Washington Post totally wrote a whole article about some kids having the usual MySpace problems — creepy strangers, jealous friends, whatever. The paper says this means MYSPACE IS DYING and GOOGLE IS SCARED (actual quote: "The relatively short lifecycle of a popular site is a terrifying prospect for companies like Google Inc.").

The story's just another poorly researched piece of blogger bait. Its point is bullshit — MySpace is not dying. But what's the Post trying to hide?

• A well-staffed newspaper can find anecdotal evidence for even the most obviously fake trends.
• The Wall Street Journal did this story last week.
• Nielsen-NetRatings figures are unreliable. (True.)
• Stat tracker Alexa says the Washington Post is so last January.

In Teens' Web World, MySpace Is So Last Year [Washington Post]