New, old media good for each other, Huffington says

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New media and old can clash and crowd each other out, but blogger extraordinaire Arianna Huffington argues in a new book that the two worlds are rapidly joining together to bring out the best in each other.

Traditional journalists are blogging, while bloggers are gaining credibility and stature in traditional media, Huffington said in a Reuters interview ahead of Tuesday's release of "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging."

The blogging guide published by Simon & Schuster provides tips on getting started and noticed as well as Huffington's own views, having created one of the most influential websites to gain prominence during the 2008 White House race.

"There's this real convergence, where basically you found that the best and most accurate rose to the top, whether it originated from Time magazine or from Nate Silver's 538.com, which did not exist before the election," she said. The 538.com website collected and analyzed political and polling data.

"The convergence is going to keep growing, as we saw in this election period, two years and four years from now, I'm sure," she added. "They have to share the power."

THOUSANDS OF AMATEURS

The Huffington Post, or HuffPo as it is known, experimented with citizen journalism in its "Off The Bus" feature, in which thousands of amateurs wrote accounts from the campaign trail.