Morgan Out, Hippeau in at HuffPo

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Source: NY Times

Betsy Morgan, the chief executive of The Huffington Post, is leaving the news Web site after less than two years on the job.

Ms. Morgan is being replaced by Eric Hippeau, a managing partner at Softbank Capital and a former CEO of the publishing company Ziff-Davis. Mr. Hippeau has been a board member of The Huffington Post and Softbank is a major investor in the company.

Ms. Morgan became CEO of The Huffington Post in October of 2007 after leaving her post as general manager of CBSNews.com. In a press release, the company credits Ms. Morgan with overseeing a six-fold increase in its audience and a doubling of advertising revenue.

The news was first reported by the Website Paidcontent.org.

“We are at this moment in our expansion when we can accelerate, both in terms of monetizing traffic and acquisitions,” said Arianna Huffington, the founder of the company, in an interview.

Ms. Huffington said one of the company’s main priorities is to expand its offering of local sites. The company has a site in Chicago, and plans to start a New York version later this month. Ms. Huffington said the site will have a presence in 12 additional cities within a year.

Of Mr. Hippeau, she said, “the fact that Eric has been so involved in our growth already means he was in a unique position to hit the road running. There is really no learning curve.”

Read more: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/morgan-out-hippeau-in-at-huffpo/

[billyoc]

1. Two years! That's 8 generations in internet years.

[No Elephants]

2. So, a corporatist is replacing a journalist at a supposedly Democratic intenet news organization?

[blueclown]

3. Not sure what to make of this, but I would say Morgan did a good job.

Huffington Post may be the most popular political blog/news site on the internet.