Huffington Post UK and Why It’s Not ‘Authentic’ to Pay Journalists

Stephen Hull, the editor of The Huffington Post United Kingdom, appeared Wednesday on BBC Radio 4’s “The Media Show.” It did not go well.

The peg for Hull’s appearance was Kate Middleton’s campaign to raise public awareness for children’s mental health issues. The duchess wrote a post for the site and spent the day as its guest editor.

The interview starts off well enough. Host Steve Hewlett — who, like many media critics, doesn’t appear to understand that pixels are unlimited and that there’s room on the Internet to serve all tastes — asks Hull about some of the site’s clickbait content, like listicles about cute animals. Hull knocked that one out of the park, noting that it’s quite possible to “do the serious and the silly in the same place.”

(Disclosure: I’ve written hundreds of light features about weird crime and the unusual adventures of animals, so I’m predisposed to side with Hull.)

Take the Trouble to Change Your Passwords

An important reminder from my colleague Bob Sullivan:

“When consumers use the same password across multiple sites, hacking becomes trivially easy. If a criminal breaks into a smaller Web site — say a site created by a local grocery store — and grabs a cache of passwords, their next step is always the major banking Web sites.”

Full story (msnbc.com)