Huffington Post defends Clooney's "faked-up" blog entry

US celebrity blog the Huffington Post is in trouble with George Clooney after compiling quotes from the actor and presenting them as a blog entry.

Site founder Arianna Huffington defended the 'misunderstanding', explaining that the actor was not sure how a blog worked, so the site compiled selected comments from interviews with Larry King Live and the Guardian which Clooney's publicist then approved.

When the post was published, the original sources had not been attributed and when Mr Clooney asked for the post to be amended, Ms Huffington refused.

"I stand by my statements but I did not write this blog," said George Clooney.

"With my permission, Miss Huffington compiled it from interviews with Larry King and The Guardian.

"What she most certainly did not get my permission to do is to combine only my answers in a blog that misleads the reader into thinking that I wrote this piece. These are not my writings - they are answers to questions and there is a huge difference."

Ms Huffington added that 99 per cent of Huffington Post bloggers post directly to the site. The remaining bloggers email, fax or even contribute by phone.

"Very, very rarely (in 10 months, it's fewer times than you can count on your hand), we will work with a first-time blogger the way editors do in other, traditional media - suggesting ideas and offering direction on what makes a blog different from, say, a New York Times op-ed," she wrote.

"This is the first time there was no back and forth with the writer - our sample was approved 'as is' - which is where the misunderstanding occurred."

Blogger and journalism commentator Jeff Jarvis said the credibility of the site's other star bloggers would be damaged by the 'faked-up' Clooney post.

Ms Huffington's claim that re-purposed material still constitutes a valid blog is described by Mr Jarvis as a "fundamental misunderstanding of the medium".

"If you're not really writing your blog, if you're having or allowing someone to do it for you, then you're gaming me, lying to me, insulting me," he writes.

"The highest virtue of citizens' media and the open age is transparency and this was not an act of transparency.

"I urge you, Arianna, to recant and set a new policy: tell me who wrote what I read."

Huffington Post was citied as a major influence on the Guardian's new Comment is free project, to which Mr Jarvis contributes.

Md Huffington blogged about the situation on Thursday under a post entitled 'The medium isn't the message - the message is the message'. By coincidence, in the URL for the posting the title is abbreviated to 'The medium isn't the mess'.

• Popular US blog Gawker was also in trouble last week for publishing 'Gawker Stalker', a Google Map feature that plots celebrity sightings in almost real-time.

Citizen media commentator JD Lasica described the feature as "a hand grenade waiting to go off".

"Sheez, this just may give the mainstream media a good name again by comparison. If we're really this obsessed with celebrities, let's just shoot ourselves now."

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).