Media titan Arianna Huffington thinks students must tap into their own leadership potential instead of waiting for others to bring about change.
Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post news website, will speak at 8 p.m. today in Eisenhower Auditorium as part of the Penn State Student Programming Association’s Distinguished Speaker Series.
In an email interview, she said that she hopes to encourage students to take an active role in a society that is constantly changing with new technological developments.
“At the same time, people’s trust in institutions is eroding,” Huffington said. “It’s no surprise that young people trust their peers more than they trust their government.”
In 2005, Huffington launched the Huffington Post. The idea, she said, came from her desire “to take the sort of conversations found at water coolers and around dinner tables — about art and politics and food and sex — and open them up and bring them online.”
“We live in a golden age for engagement — for people who want to access the best stories from around the world, interact, and form communities,” Huffington said. “Our job is to do what journalists at their best have always done — hold our leaders and institutions accountable and tell the stories that need to be told.”
AOL bought the Huffington Post last year. In 2009, Forbes named Huffington one of the “Most Influential Women in Media.” She was also recognized as one of the “50 People Who Shaped the Decade” by The Financial Times in 2009. Last year, Time magazine included her on its list of the 100 Most Influential People.
Huffington said those at the online publication that bears her name are “trying always to tell the stories that matter and stay on them as long as they’re important, even after many in the media have moved on.”
Empathy, she said, “the instinct that compels us to expand the boundaries of our caring to include our communities and the world around us, is one of the key qualities I look for in any journalist.”
Tickets to the talk are free to the public. While available, they can be picked up at the Bryce Jordan Center ticket office, the HUB information desk, Eisenhower Auditorium and the Penn State downtown ticket office.
Crystal Jones is a Penn State journalism student.
