I've never liked Arianna Huffington for a couple or reason. First, her voice just makes me climb the walls. I don't know what it is about it, but i just cringe when I hear it. Second, her only claim to fame is that her ex-husband spent a lot of money in a failed bid for Senate and then exited the closet as a bisexual.

Anyway, Huffington made news in the blogosphere this week when she cobbled together things actor George Clooney said in an interview on "Larry King Live" and other public statements, and posted them on the Huffington Post as an essay under Clooney's byline. Clooney, who knows more about basic journalistic standards than Huffington (not a high bar, I know), immediately told Huffington to knock it off. Huffington also got a lot of flak from others in the blogosphere, and has now come out with a non-apology apology.

Buzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis has said it best:

Blogs are people and the blogosphere is a conversation. 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. In this little drama, we are Roxannes, Clooney is the dashing Christian de Neuvileette, and Arianna is Cyrano de Bergerac … or perhaps Pinocchio. 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.

At least, I trust that that is what Jeff Jarvis said, you can't be too sure nowadays.

*NOTICE* Everything in this post was written by me except where otherwise indicated.