Gillian Brooks
Mrs. Huffington Comes to Hollywood:
Celebrities, Social Capital and Gaining Legitimacy in the Field of Journalism
Alain Accardo, a French sociologist influenced by Pierre Bourdieu, notes that in order
to exist within a distinct field, a player must be visible not only physically, but also socially,
“which means for others, to be recognized by others, to acquire importance, visibility” (1997:
51). I will argue that in order for an online news organization to gain legitimacy in the field
of journalism, it must be recognized as such by those who occupy positions of status within
the space. The organization seeking legitimacy must demonstrate an “internal value or
principle of the field” (Bourdieu 1998: 70) in order to illustrate its understanding of the field.
For Arianna Huffington, this meant affiliating herself with individuals of status
(specifically celebrities and politicians), so as to embed herself amongst them in order to
achieve one of the values of the field – “peer recognition” (Bourdieu 1998: 70). She achieved
this by placing herself at the centre of these individuals. This paper will describe how The
Huffington Post has gained legitimacy in the field of online journalism, through Editor-inChief Arianna Huffington’s ability to affiliate herself with key players who possess
significant amounts of social capital. The findings presented in this paper are based on six
months of ethnographic research conducted at prominent media firms in the United States.
Bourdieu and Wacquant define social capital as “the sum of the resources, actual or
virtual, that accrue to an individual or group by virtue of possessing a durable network of
more or less institutionalized relationships” (1992: 119). My time spent in the field revealed
that in an environment as contentious as online journalism, connections and validations by
key offline players are a requirement for perceived legitimacy. I will illustrate how she
aligned herself with those in socially prestigious positions in order to create a transaction
model of reciprocity in which both sides need each other, encouraging her recognition within
this space. She created a network composed of left-wing celebrities and politicians who gave
interviews and exclusive stories on her site, creating a unique environment which attracted
readers and subsequent recognition by those in positions of status within the field.
The first section of this paper will situate the field of online journalism and the
incestuous relationships that exist between three of its key members: Andrew Breitbart, Matt
Drudge and Arianna Huffington. Section II presents an overview of the liberal media
landscape and the relationships that exist between media and politics, providing a background
2
on Huffington and her infamous Brentwood brunch. Section III introduces the associative
resources of return transaction model to illustrate how social capital is both accrued and
disseminated within the field of journalism: specifically amongst Huffington and the wives of
media moguls. Section IV analyzes Huffington’s unique relationship with President Obama
and their use of celebrity culture during the 2008 Presidential campaign, while the final
section will review Huffington’s legitimizing strategy and determine its degree of success.
I – Setting the Stage: The Influence of Journalism in Hollywood
Online news organizations need to understand the rules of the field in order to
participate. Illustrating understanding of the field of journalism amounts to displaying a form
of respect for it: demonstrating to those in positions of status that those seeking legitimation
are aware of the hierarchy that exists, and what is required of them to secure a position. As
Bourdieu notes: “The new players have to pay an entry fee which consists in recognition of
the value of the game … and in (practical) knowledge of the principles of the functioning of
the game” (1993: 74).
Andrew Breitbart, Matt Drudge and Arianna Huffington’s relationship began in 1995,
as they attempted to break from their status as unknowns in the American media landscape
and emerge as interpreters of what Breitbart calls “the Democratic Media Complex” (DMC):
by which he means a group of key political (Democrat) and Hollywood players who dictate
the conversations taking place in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Breitbart is
famous amongst industry insiders for coining the concept; he views the structuring of the
DMC as illustrative of the relationships which exist within the liberal media landscape, and
contribute to its maintenance of the status quo. He argues that there are three pillars to the
Complex that work harmoniously in order to disseminate Democratic agenda items:
Hollywood influencers (Los Angeles); the liberal media (New York); and politicians
(Washington, D.C.).
A key element of the DMC is the deep-seated relationship between Hollywood and
Washington. Politicians gain notoriety through celebrity endorsements of political platforms,
converting potentially dull news items into Hollywood fodder. In order to maintain a
prominent space online, an organization has to address both Washington and Hollywood. I
introduce Breitbart’s notion of the DMC in this paper because it aligns with how Huffington
went about infiltrating the journalistic field through her strategic affiliations with individuals
of status from the three aforementioned categories. Her strategy was implemented the
3
morning after the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. As Howard Fineman, Editorial Director of
The Huffington Post’s Washington, D.C. bureau, explained during our interview, “we are
trying hard to pay homage to and to honour and nurture our roots as a ‘progressive’ website
which grew out of the anti-war movement and the Obama campaign, and the desire to have,
originally, an alternative to The Drudge Report”.
Arianna Huffington was not always an insider. In the early 1980s, at the age of 30,
she moved from London to New York, seeking an established role amongst Manhattan’s
social elite. She claims that she earned the title of “socialite”, a designation which the press
disseminated in such publications as W and Town & Country. Accustomed to “lunches at Le
Cirque, dances at the Metropolitan Museum, weekends in the Hamptons, and intimate blacktie dinners for 36” (Cohen 2011: 43), Huffington had carved out a niche role for herself as a
social plutocrat. After marrying Texas oil heir, Michael Huffington, in the mid-1980s, the
two relocated to Santa Barbara, California, where Michael ran against congresswoman and
Democratic incumbent, Dianne Feinstein (2011: 45). Critics of Huffington argue that she
used her husband’s campaign to gain leverage amongst California’s political and social elite.
Having conquered both the east and west coasts of the U.S. by positioning herself as a
connector amongst the country’s elite, Huffington shifted her focus away from political wife
and socialite and became a gubernatorial candidate for the Democratic Party. Her marriage to
Michael ended in divorce: with him publicly stating that he was a bisexual. With a failed
marriage and a new political affiliation, Huffington set her strategic sights on befriending the
wives of rich and powerful men. This “befriending was one of her tricks [to gain insider
access]”, as Breitbart stated in one of our interviews.
Huffington’s inner circle includes Wendi Murdoch (ex-wife of Rupert Murdoch,
American media mogul and CEO of NewsCorp); Kathy Freston (wife of Tom Freston,
American entertainment industry executive); Kelly Meyer (wife of Rob Meyer, American
entertainment executive); Grace Hightower (wife of actor Robert DeNiro); Elaine Wynn (exwife of Steve Wynn, American business magnate); and Willow Bay (wife of Bob Iger,
Chairman and Chief Executive of the Walt Disney Company). She understood the field as a
network of players and associated herself with those who possessed the status she needed to
become a part of it. As Bourdieu states, “the existence of a network of connections is not a
natural given … It is the product of an endless effort at institution” (1986: 249). Her
relationships with these women will be analyzed in section III.
4
II – The Intersection of Media and Politics: “The Brentwood Brunch”
Given that online news organizations have yet to solidify their position in the field of
journalism, greater significance is placed on these new organizations as they align themselves
with the political party necessary to validate both their existence and their legitimacy. This
alignment gives them immediate social capital in so far as news organizations become an
extension of political parties.
According to Breitbart, when members of the liberal elite would decline to come over
to Huffington’s home for “baklava in the kitchen” because she was a registered Republican,
she realized that becoming a Democrat would be highly instructive to her plans. Hollywood
was disenchanted with the Bush administration and confident that Kerry would win in 2004.
The loss presented Huffington with an opportune moment to benefit professionally, as she
presented her website as “a liberal Drudge”. She recognized that she needed to move from the
periphery to the nucleus in order to gain the status she wanted.
In examining the origins of The Huffington Post, many individuals whom I
interviewed pointed towards John Kerry’s unsuccessful Presidential candidacy as of pivotal
importance in helping mobilize America’s liberal elite at an intimate gathering at
Huffington’s estate in Brentwood, California in 2004. The details surrounding the infamous
“power brunch” at Huffington’s home are representative of the symbiotic relationship
between Washington and Hollywood, as referenced by Breitbart’s DMC. Following President
George W. Bush’s victory over Senator John Kerry in November 2004, Huffington rallied
key players of the Democratic Media Complex in order to “win back the White House”
(Cohen, 2011). As opposed to drawing on members of Congress or local politicians,
Huffington opted to bring together celebrities who possessed distinct social capital – whether
through their reputations, public visibility or membership in a desired network – and the
ability to mobilize other like-minded members of the Hollywood elite. She gathered a varied
group of liberal influencers: including comedian, Larry David; Hollywood mogul, David
Geffen; movie producer, Brian Grazer; screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin; television producer,
Norman Lear; actress, Meg Ryan; actor, Tom Hanks; and his wife, Rita Wilson (Cohen
2011). Huffington knew that she needed to invest time in fostering relationships with these
individuals of status, and provide them with a resource they could not deny. They would both
be indebted to one another in an unofficial relationship of reciprocity: as will be explained in
the next section through the associative resources of return transaction model.
5
III –The Associative Resources of Return Transaction Model
This section will illustrate how the associative resources of return transaction model
works in examining how Huffington used the Brentwood Group to gain access to the
Democratic Party through her use of Democratic-supporting celebrities posting stories on The
Huffington Post. I use the term “Brentwood Group” to refer to the members of Hollywood’s
liberal elite who came to the inaugural Huffington Post breakfast meeting at Huffington’s
home.
The associative resources of return transaction model is an exchange of social capital
for positive news coverage. An online news organization gets richer the more associative
resources of return it has at its disposal, and subsequently its perceived legitimacy increases.
The return that these organizations secure is non-financial; it is an associative transaction that
privileges social capital. Figure 1.0 illustrates this model, highlighting the symbiotic
relationship between Huffington as a seeker of social capital, and the Brentwood Group as
the provider. The Brentwood Group provided Huffington with the resources necessary for her
to launch her website in May 2005. These resources included the names of influential people
in Hollywood, New York and Washington, D.C., who would support her new media
initiative. The support would not only be financial, but would allow Huffington access to the
Rolodex of key members of the Democratic Media Complex, as illustrated in Figure 1.0:
Figure 1.0. The Associative Resources of Return Transactional Model
Once Huffington launched her site, she relied on many of these key players to write stories
and comment on news items that benefitted them. She used their names and the social capital
affiliated with them; and in return, gained exclusive news information for her site, separating
herself from competitors. As Breitbart stated in one of our interviews, “she became the
mouthpiece for the Democratic Party”.
6
Figure 1.1 illustrates the types of articles written by such prominent celebrities as
Alec Baldwin, Rita Wilson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The headlines accompanying their
articles suggest an inside perspective on topics easily relatable to readers, yet which provide
content that they cannot access anywhere else.
Figure 1.1. Prominent celebrity bloggers on The Huffington Post
As noted earlier, Huffington strategically formed relationships with the wives of the
left-leaning media players listed in Figures 1.2 and 1.3. Her relationships with these women
illustrate her understanding of the importance of maintaining ties with America’s media
moguls in order to sustain her online franchise.
Figure 1.2. Arianna Huffington’s Social Network of Influence
7
Figure 1.3. Wives of American Media Moguls
Wife/Ex-Wife
Willow Bay
Elaine Wynn
Kathy Freston
Wendi Murdoch
Diane von Furstenberg
Husband/Ex-Husband
Bob Iger:
Chairman/CEO, Walt Disney
Director, Apple Inc. Board of Directors
Steve Wynn:
Co-Founder, Chairman, CEO of Wynn Resorts
Responsible for the expansion/resurgence of the Las Vegas strip
Tom Freston:
Entertainment Industry Exec.
Former CEO of Viacom
Dreamworks Board of Directors
Board Chairman for the ONE Campaign
Rupert Murdoch:
Chairman/CEO of Newscorp
Barry Diller:
Chairman/Senior Executive, IAC (InterActiveCorp)
IAC owns The Daily Beast
Responsible for the creation of Fox Broadcasting and USA Broadcasting
While online news organizations such as The Huffington Post rely on resources from offline
relationships in order to solidify their legitimizing status, it is important to examine how it is
that Huffington leveraged her relationship with these women in order to benefit her
organization. Each of the women listed in Figures 1.2 and 1.3 has a connection with
Huffington. For example, Willow Bay, the wife of Robert Iger (CEO of Walt Disney), is a
Senior Editor at The Huffington Post; while Elaine Wynn and Kathy Freston are contributors
to the site (see Figure 1.4).
Figure 1.4. The Befriended Women of The Huffington Post
Willow Bay (wife of Walt Disney CEO, Robert Iger)
Kathy Freston (wife of former CEO of Viacom, Tom Freston)
8
Elaine Wynn (wife of Wynn Resorts CEO, Steve Wynn)
My research supports Castells’ argument that media networks do not “exist in a
vacuum” (2009: 93), and their success is dependent on non-media networks. Based on my
findings, successful online media organizations have emerged victorious as a result of their
use of non-media networks, i.e. social relationships with individuals in politics and
entertainment, in addition to media networks.
In conducting a social network analysis of Arianna Huffington’s contacts, I have
mapped the players who have contributed to her network. Figure 1.5 is divided into five
distinct categories: navy blue, red, orange, green, and purple, all connecting to an offline
relationship with Huffington.
In the purple category, Huffington is linked to Howard Fineman, the Deputy Director
of The Huffington Post’s Washington, D.C. bureau. Fineman was formerly an editor at
Newsweek during the 1990s.
The green category marks a significant change in the media ownership landscape.
Newsweek partnered with The Daily Beast when it launched in 2008. Tina Brown, the former
editor of Vanity Fair, became the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast. Brown, a graduate of
the University of Oxford, is a friend of Arianna Huffington; the two are members of
numerous executive boards, along with Barry Diller’s wife, fashion designer, Diane von
Furstenberg. Diller is the Chairman of InterActive Corporation (IAC), which owns, among
many media companies, The Daily Beast.
9
Figure 1.5. A Social Network Analysis of the World of Arianna Huffington
The red category outlines the acquisition of The Huffington Post by America Online
(AOL) for $315 million in 2010. The navy blue category refers to the early days of The
Huffington Post: when founders James Boyce and Peter Daou attended the Brentwood
brunch. Boyce and Daou met while working on Senator John Kerry’s 2004 Presidential
Campaign. Boyce was the Chief Media Strategist, having covered six Democratic
presidential campaigns, while Daou was Kerry’s Online Communications Director.
According to my interview with Boyce, Daou was the first person ever to occupy an Online
Communications position for a presidential campaign.
10
Kerry’s Press Secretary on the campaign was David Wade, a former student of Josh
Marshall, Editor-in-Chief and founder of Talking Points Memo (TPM). Prior to founding
TPM, Marshall was a history professor at Brown University.
The orange category is based on anecdotal evidence from the interviews which I
conducted. The affiliation of The Huffington Post to MSNBC is based on usage. According to
Boyce, who worked at MSNBC from 2007 to 2008, the television news network would use
The Huffington Post as its personal Rolodex. As Boyce explained in our interview:
[At MSNBC] if they needed to book anybody, all they did was go on The Huffington
Post and see who was writing about a specific issue and book them. I sat there and
watched the bookers, and they’d be like “oh, we need someone on ‘torture’”, and they
would go and see who was blogging about it; that was how they would get guests and
that’s how they still do [get guests].
MSNBC is owned by NBC Universal; which is majority owned by Comcast (51%), and
minority owned by General Electric (49%).
IV – Obama and the Celebrity Influence
A number of scholars argue that the 2008 election specifically encouraged celebrity
influence. This tactic helped Obama raise money for and awareness regarding his campaign.
According to USA Today, Obama’s support from celebrities was paramount:
For Hollywood, there's only one star left in the presidential campaign. Barack
Obama's gala fundraiser Tuesday will … confirm again that the entertainment
industry remains one of the most reliable and abundant sources of Democratic
campaign cash (USA Today, June 23, 2008).
Given the celebrity-infused news content on The Huffington Post, there existed a symbiotic
connection between it and the celebrity endorsements received by Obama during the 2008
campaign. Obama received celebrity endorsements from numerous individuals who attended
Huffington’s Brentwood Brunch, including Tom Hanks and David Geffen (USA Today, June
23, 2008).
This combination of networking with celebrities formed the basis of Huffington’s
legitimizing strategy and worked in conjunction with Obama’s campaign, setting the stage for
the newly elected President’s public acknowledgment of The Huffington Post. Obama offered
an unofficial endorsement of Huffington by calling first on Huffington Post reporter, Sam
Stein, during a White House press conference in February 2009, illustrating a shift in the
hierarchy in the field of journalism. CBS News reported:
11
With one swift gesture, Obama placed Huffington Post on the nation's big stage, right
alongside the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the television networks
(Friedman, February 20, 2009).
It is important to situate Obama’s acknowledgment because it represented a vital moment in
which players of status within the field of journalism (i.e. those who grant legitimacy)
witnessed the validation of an online news organization by a prominent player (the President)
who outranked them (the press). As Friedman commented:
For his part, Stein could do without being branded a trailblazer among bloggers. He
prefers to view it as the administration's acknowledgement that Huffington Post is a
legitimate alternative to newspapers, magazines, TV stations and radio outlets.
"We do good reporting and we break news," he said. "Huffington Post has earned
legitimacy."
That point was confirmed Wednesday night when Arianna Huffington, founder and
editor-in-chief of the operation, discussed the financial crisis and yukked it up with
Jay Leno, a sure sign that Huffington has become a celebrity journalist (February 20,
2009).
V – Huffington’s Legitimizing Plan: A Success?
Huffington has pioneered a unique news platform of journalism infused with celebrity
opinion by having well-known celebrities and politicians write exclusive articles for her site.
This strategic model relies on the celebrity-obsessed culture that continues to dominate the
American media industry. She knows that the American public has an infatuation with
celebrities; and therefore has a created a platform where news consumers can hear what
celebrities have to say on a variety of topics, increasing her readership at an increased rate
compared to a media organization that does not have celebrities commenting on the news of
the day. As Karen Sternheimer argues:
Love it, hate it, or love to hate it, celebrity culture is one of the hallmarks of twentyfirst century America. Never before has it been so easy to know so much about so
many people, even people we might not want to know about. We seem to be on a first
name basis with them, give them nicknames, and sometimes even feel as if we know
all about them (2011: xiii).
A sense of intimacy is created through Huffington’s use of celebrities as reporters: allowing
readers to migrate in droves toward her site, thus increasing her readership.
Through Huffington’s affiliation with individuals of status she was able to create an
online news organization that catered to the Democratic Media Complex. This was examined
in this paper through the associative resources of return transaction model, Huffington’s
12
unique networking strategies, and the influence of celebrity culture in creating a relationship
of reciprocity between Huffington and Obama: a relationship that led to the legitimation of
The Huffington Post.
13
Bibliography
Accardo, Alain. Introduction a une sociologie critique: Lire Bourdieu. Paris: Mascaret, 1997
Bourdieu, Pierre. On Television and Journalism. London: Pluto Press, 1998
Bourdieu, Pierre and Wacquant, Loic. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1992
Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1993
Bourdieu, Pierre. “The forms of capital”. Handbook of Theory and Research for the
Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood, 1986. pp. 241-258
Castells, Manuel. Communication Power. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press,
2009
Cohen, William. “Huffing and Puffing” Vanity Fair. February 2011
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/02/ariana-huffington-201102
Friedman, John. “Obama’s New Best Friend: Huffington Post”. CBS News. February 20,
2009. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obamas-new-best-friend-huffington-post/
Accessed September 1, 2013
Sternheimer, Karen. Celebrity Culture and the American Dream: Stardom and Social
Mobility. New York: Routledge. 2011
USA Today.“Obama corners the market in Hollywood”. June 23, 2008.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-06-23-obamahollywood_N.htm?csp=34 Accessed: May 5, 2013