Arianna: No Candles or Talk of Compensation

In lieu of birthday cake, the National Press Club offered AOL/Huffington Post branded sugar cookies last Friday as HuffPo founder Arianna Huffington celebrated her birthday by speaking at the Club’s luncheon series with AOL partner Tim Armstrong.

While the pair’s planned remarks occillated around the topics of hyperlocal, branding and taking online connection to an offline marketplace, members of the press — after singing the media maven Happy Birthday — made clear their interest in getting to the bottom line: pay.  Several questions addressed Huffignton’s considerations for the future of journalism and online content compensation, a topic which Arianna artfully avoided.

“Self expression is the new entertainment and a major source of fulfillment,” she said, adding, “Media is in an incredible time of transition.  The future belongs to those who bring together the best of old media (fact-checking, accountability…) with new media skills (interactivity, real time info…) And new media is arming people around the world to bear witness to what is going on in the country, which is the highest responsibility of journalists and of citizens.”

So what was her wish on those birthday candle-less sugar cookies?  She swore it was about the health and well-being of her children,  but we’re betting on world media domination… at a bargain.