We interrupt our regularly scheduled list of recommended reading for writers to bring you more reactions to AOL’s deal to buy Huffington Post for $315 million in cash and stock, a deal that would make Arianna Huffington the company’s new head of content.

There’s a lot of “what does this mean” posts about the deal floating around, but I’m focusing on those that pertain specifically to writers and bloggers.

They are:

The Politics of the New Huffington Post at AOL (Jay Rosen’s PressThink) – From the esteemed industry pundit and New York University journalism professor.

How The Huffington Post Really Works (In Case You Were Wondering) (HuffPo) – One friend and fellow journalist called this a “pompous, self-righteous, but still informative post.” Read and decide for yourself.

This week in review: AOL’s big HuffPost buy (Nieman Journalism Lab) – By far the most comprehensive list of what everyone is saying about the deal.

AOL-HuffPo: Arianna and the Free Blog Economy (PaidContent)

AOL (Heart) HuffPo. The Loser? Journalism (Los Angeles Times) – Tim Rutten op-ed and winner of the best quote about the deal to date:

The Huffington Post is a brilliantly packaged product with a particular flair for addressing the cultural and entertainment tastes of its overwhelmingly liberal audience. To grasp its business model, though, you need to picture a galley rowed by slaves and commanded by pirates.

Guess who the slaves are? That’s right – you, me and anyone else who writes for HuffPo for free.

But I’ll be honest with you. I’ve been too busy blogging and promoting my blogging every day in the month of May and trying to meet deadlines for paid writing projects it hasn’t left much time to read any kind of writing, let alone the great stuff (I will get to those back issues of The New Yorker eventually).

With so much blogging on my mind, I’ve been favoriting a lot of blogging and web-related stories on Twitter, which is what I’m sharing this week.

Tools

• How social media is transforming modern reporting –  Twitter as copy editor.
• Yahoo to publish a webwriting stylebook – Just in time for all those Associated Content writers it’s bringing into the fold.
• Barnes & Noble to launch self publishing service – Now you don’t need an agent or a publisher to write a book.
• Best ebook news on Twitter – From Mediabistro’s ebookNewser (good content, bad name).
• The Google font directory – Free fonts from Google – because you don’t use enough of their stuff already.
• Three easy tips for writing meta descriptions and titles – From writer/web designer Ron Doyle, because all writers – even if you don’t work for Associated Content or Yahoo – need to understand SEO.

Hyperlocal news

• What was Yahoo thinking? Buying Associated Content opens up a whole can of worms – Leave it to TechCrunch to say it like it is. And can I say how beautifully not SEO friendly that headline is? Love it.
• New AC writer’s union seeks seat at the table when deciding our fate – Um, did anybody tell these guys they have to be employees to unionize?
• Local lesson: hanging on to community reporters – How to motivate unpaid hyperlocal content contributors, without paying them. Good luck with that.

Inside baseball

• The most ridiculous newspaper typos ever – Thanks to the online-only Huffington Post, of course.
• The bloggers guide to having fun while writing – Some Peter Gabriel on the iPod and a nice pinot noir doesn’t hurt either.
• The All Freelance Writing virtual book club – Wish I’d thought of it first.

Imprisioned U.S. freelancer ends hunger strike – Roxana Saberi, the freelance broadcast convicted of spying in Iran ended a two-week hunger strike after Iranian authorities agreed to hold an appeal hearing for her next week. The Iranian-American freelance broadcast reporter was arrested in January and convicted of spying in a closed-door trial in April. Saberi’s supporters have created a website, Free Roxana Saberi.

Congress holds U.S. newspaper industry hearings – Plenty of big names held forth on the future of the news business at a May 6 Congresssional hearing. As could be expected, presenters’ POVs varied. HuffPost founder Arianna Huffington was the optimist, declaring, “Despite all the current hand wringing about the dire state of the newspaper industry – well-warranted hand wringing, I might add – we are actually in the midst of a Golden Age for news consumers.” Ex-newspaperman turned Hollywood writer (“The Wire”) David Simon was much more downbeat, saying “High-end journalism is dying in America and unless a new economic model is achieved it will not be reborn on the web or anywhere else.” Replay the entire Webcast here.

Is this what they had in mind? – The Chicago Tribune is working on a new Website called Chicago Now that could be a blueprint for the 21st century news ventures discussed at this week’s Congressional hearings. According to news reports, Chicago Now will combine elements of traditional news coverage with e-commerce, blogs, advertorials and social media. The new site is distinct from RedEye, the Tribune’s free daily paper for “young, urban professionals.” The Tribune and other Tribune publishing holdings filed for federal bankruptcy protection last December.

Other stories, items and websites of interest -

• 2009 Online News Association Awards categories – 14 categories, including four paying a total of $28,000 in cash prizes. Deadline for entries is June 30, 2009.
• The Center for Investigative Journalism is hiring reporters to staff a California investigative reporting initiative funded by $2.4 million in grants.
• The Boston Globe, Las Vegas Sun, ESPN.com and CNN.com each won two 2009 Editor & Publisher EPpy awards for outstanding news industry websites and blogs. See the full list here.
• Neighborlogs – a free service/website template for creating hyperlocal community news sites.
• 17 statistics for monitoring your blog – From ProBlogger.

Twitter tools -

• Tweetmeme – Like a Digg for Twitter, this service finds the hottest stories on the service based on the number of retweets.
• How to integrate Twitter into WordPress – A Web Designer Magazine tutorial that explains in 16 very code-y steps how to weave Twitter into a WordPress.com blog.
• Twitter Secrets – An entire blog dedicated to Twitter apps and tools.

Got Websites, news or tips about the digital media business to share? Send them to me: michellerafter (at) comcast (dot) net.