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Arianna Huffington Launches New Huffington Post Sites For Women, Parents

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) - Arianna Huffington and her Huffington Post have launched two new websites.

Huffington tells WCBS 880's Pat Farnack that she sees HuffPost Women and HuffPost Parents as not only informational, but as conversation starters.

LISTEN: Farnack with Huffington

Podcast

(Download the full interview HERE)

"Oh, absolutely. That is at the heart of what we see, both through our thousands of bloggers and through our millions of commenters. People want just to read and to absorb and to receive information. They want to be part of the story of our times, and self-expression is becoming increasingly important in what people are doing," said Huffington.

"The big question, Arianna, seems to be 'How do we make money from the internet?' and some terrific news organizations, well everybody, is really grappling with that issue," said Farnack.

"Well, there are going to be many answers, but for us the answer is advertising. I mean, we are an entirely advertising-supported operation, and I think once you reach a scale, that's possible. I mean, there are some many other ways that you can support investigative journalism, including the not-for-profit model, which we see in effect with the Center for Public Integrity," said Huffington."

HuffPost Women got off to a good start with a big story this week - college women paying their tuition by finding sugar daddies.

"Our education reporter Amanda Fairbanks broke [the story] about how many tens of thousands of students go on sites to try and find sugar daddies to basically sell themselves to pay for their education, to pay their college loans. It's really, for me, a very important story because it puts flesh and blood on the crisis that we're facing in this country, crisis in terms of jobs, in terms of college debt, etc," said Huffington.

One topic covered in HuffPost Women is 'if the house looked perfect, I'd know she was ok' about caring for an aging parent.

"That is a very interesting story because women, no matter whether they have an outside job, a demanding career, they're still the main providers both of child care and of care for elderly parents, elderly relatives. So that's why one of the things we're covering obsessively is how can we all, as women, learn to unplug and recharge, is how we call it. How can we learn to recharge ourselves? Because we are the nurturers and if we don't recharge ourselves, it's very hard to nurture others," said Huffington.

Finally, Farnack asked Huffington how to become fearless and how to keep fear from getting in the way.

"You put your finger on it. It's not about not having fears. We all have fears. It's part of being human. It's about learning to put the fears aside. It's about not letting our fears get in the way of what we want to do, of what our dreams are. So that's really the point I'm making," said Huffington.

"Do you worry about people saying things about you, making fun of you or anything like that?
" asked Farnack.

"Not anymore. I mean, obviously, when I was younger, I did. But I think part of growing up and evolving is to follow your own drama, take feedback when it's appropriate, learn from criticism, but also not let naysayers get in the way of what you know you want to do, and that's one of the things I'm trying to teach my daughters. They're both in college now, and I think that's one of the important messages," answered Huffington.

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