Huffington Post co-founder and former political satirist, Ariana Huffington dismissed the view of protectionist, traditional publishers who believe in removing content from Google to maintain exclusivity as being backward in the workings of the web.

Speaking at a Washington Conference where Murdoch spoke out to publishers against giving content away for free , Huffington, the women behind one of the largest aggregator sites in the world, decried Murdoch’s comments that termed aggregators “ parasites, “content kleptomaniacs” and “ thieves who steal all our copyright,”as ineptitude to rekindle a dwindling clientele, blaming aggregators of stealing content instead.

She pointed out Murdoch’s misconceptions between between misappropriation- to which there is legal redress- and aggregation, monitored by relevant web-centric copyright laws.

She stressed that the Huffington Post aggregates in addition to original content, stating that the concept of “linking” is important as it allows the reader flexibility and choice to pursue interests.

Huffintong advocated a new kind of hybrid journalism, which marries traditional publishing to digital opportunities and maintained that many of the old elk now follow this tend, as a bid to dispel an “ us and them” stance.
Murdoch’s announcement for pay berths around his news sites including The Times and The Sun, have led Huffintongton to self-defense, feeling this to be an assault on those in the new media.

According to her, a site can remove its news content from Google’s search index simply by pressing “disallow” on robots.txt, warning,however. against an immediate loss in traffic.

She also stated that professionalism in journalism was being hindered by lack of competition to traditional publishers and a pre-tax 20% profit was for the same more important that relentless journalism leading them to lobby and ask the government to bail them out.

She pointed out News Corps practice of aggregating content and using links to other stories in its Wall Street Journal and pointed out FoxNews aggregates from The New York Times, Washington Post,MSNBC and other sources.