Huffington had compiled a post from TV interviews with the well-known actor, sent it to one of his publicists, and received the go-ahead three days later. But apparently when Clooney saw the post with his picture and name next to it, making it appear to all like he had actually sat down and written it, he declared, "These are not my writings - they are answers to questions and there is a huge difference."

The sometimes-gubernatoiral-candidate-for-California Huffington then defended her decision but eventually caved, apologized and revised her publication's rules about sourcing material gathered from outside outlets, all thanks to various posts around the blogosphere, some pressure from the mainstream press and comments on her own blog. 

Although this situation differs somewhat from that of Rathergate and the martyring of Eason Jordan, it reinforces the citizen journalist mantra that the masses can indeed be an effective editorial board and as a blogger or mainstream journalist, if the masses hold you to accountability, you'd better listen or you could lose readers. 

It also shows that the public will not tolerate being misled. Sourcing is easy online. As Jeff Jarvis suggested, Arianna should have simply linked to the source of the ghost-written Clooney articles instead of trying to authenticate it with his mug, bio and byline. 

Source: The New York Times